THE Westminster system has been deemed “broken beyond repair” after it was revealed a company majority-owned by a leading Tory donor has been handed a £350 million coronavirus contract by the UK Government.
Belize-based billionaire and pollster Lord Ashcroft donated £175,000 to the Tories and their London mayoral candidate last year.
He is the largest shareholder in Medacs Healthcare, which has been awarded a two-year deal to recruit and manage staff for NHS Test & Trace. The business is a subsidiary of the Impellam Group, a FTSE-listed company.
READ MORE: Westminster refuses to name 'VIP' companies handed PPE contracts in cronyism row
The contract was revealed by OpenDemocracy. It was signed before Christmas and covers the “provision of temporary workforce to support medical and clinical services in laboratories or to assist the national testing programme in response to Covid-19”.
Medacs Healthcare is also working with an NHS trust in Oxfordshire to recruit vaccinators.
SNP MSP George Adam told The National: "The Tory cronyism knows no bounds. Already millions of pounds have been wasted on Tory pals being handed contracts, which demonstrates, yet again, that the whole Westminster system is broken beyond repair.
"Billions have been handed out to Tory chums whilst the Chancellor plans to cut £20 a week to the Universal Credit payments of thousands of families when they need it most.”
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He added: "There needs to be a complete overhaul into how this shady government hands out its contracts as millions of taxpayer's money is being handed out to chums and donors of the Tory party, but we are not seeing value for money from it."
The latest accusation of cronyism comes after a scathing National Audit Office report found firms with political links to the Conservatives were fast-tracked to a “VIP lane” for government contracts, with their bids 10 times more likely to be successful.
Labour’s shadow Cabinet Office minister Rachel Reeves commented: "People are understandably furious seeing businesses owned and run by the friends and donors of the Tory Party being awarded huge multi-million-pound public contracts throughout this pandemic.
“Cronyism, incompetence and waste have been everyday features of this government's approach to outsourcing and ministers show little willingness to learn lessons from the National Audit Office investigations."
There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Medacs or Lord Ashcroft.
The Department for Health and Social Care said that “proper due diligence is carried out on all government contracts”. Medacs Healthcare could not be reached for comment.
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