The Government has been accused of “cronyism” after it emerged that the Health Secretary owns shares in an NHS contract-winning firm which his sister is also connected to. BBC News has the story.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock owns shares in a company which was approved as a potential supplier for NHS trusts in England…
In March, [Matt Hancock] declared he had acquired more than 15% of Topwood Ltd, which was granted the approved status in 2019.
The firm, which specialises in the secure storage, shredding and scanning of documents, also won £300,000 of business from NHS Wales this year.
A Government spokesman said there had been no conflict of interest. …
Mr Hancock declared in the MPs’ register of interests that he had acquired more than 15% of the shares in Topwood, under a “delegated management arrangement”.
Public contract records show that the NHS in England awarded the company a place in its Shared Business Services framework as a potential supplier for local trusts in 2019, the year after Mr Hancock became Health Secretary.
The MPs’ register did not mention that his sister Emily Gilruth – involved in the firm since its foundation in 2002 – owns a larger portion of the shares and is a director, or that Topwood has links to the NHS – as first reported by the Guido Fawkes blog and Health Service Journal (HSJ).
Guido has more:
Not only did Hancock’s sister’s firm win two NHS Wales contracts, it won a place on a framework to provide services to the English NHS in 2019 – half a year after Hancock became Health Secretary. He failed to declare any conflicts of interest in his member’s register.
While many ministers do declare interests of parents and siblings – even when they aren’t directly relevant to their role – the Department for Health wouldn’t be drawn on whether Hancock discussed his family involvement in the firm with the Permanent Secretary or Independent Advisor.
As the HSJ points out, this news comes at a particularly bad time for the Government, though the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) maintains that Hancock “has acted entirely properly”.
The news comes amid increased scrutiny of links between Government and business, in the wake of the Greensill scandal and concerns about how public sector contracts were awarded during the Covid pandemic.
The DHSC spokesman’s full comment on the issue last night was: “Mr Hancock has acted entirely properly in these circumstances. All declarations of interest have been made in accordance with the ministerial code. Ministers have no involvement in the awarding of these contracts, and no conflict of interest arises.”
Unsurprisingly, Labour has jumped on this story, with Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth saying that Hancock’s undeclared interest was “shocking”.
Sadly I suspect no one is surprised any more at the cronyism at the heart of this Government.
The BBC News report is worth reading in full.
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It comes across as Tory sleaze -why did he think thsi was a good idea?
Because hes a sleazy Tory.
And, like most of them, enjoys making an easy-sleazy buck!
That pic of Hatt Mancock?
The absolute definition of a Kill Bill gene edited/modified transhuman…
.
Mr. New Normal a walking advert for avoiding the double-whammy jab.
Come the Covidian war crimes trial, he’ll no doubt start weeping fake tears again as he begs for clemency and “ I was only following the GAVI/WHO/WEF orders!”
They don’t care that we know. It has reached a point where they are convinced, with apparently good reason, that they can get away with anything. As was shown in the Contracts cover up, the office of Secretary of State was found culpable, not the man.
Yes I’ve been thinking for some time now that they just don’t care who knows what, because they’re so confident that an “overwhelming majority” approve of their every move. They have the unreflecting support of the people they’re keenest to deceive, and so don’t give tuppence about what the minority knows (that’s us by the way). This could be – hopefully is – their Achylles’ Heel.
Well, to quote Carmine Lorenzo in Die Hard 2, “Well I’m stunned. I gotta lie down!”.
I just thought I’d reply to say bravo 👏. Love a DH2 reference!
The global puppets appear to think they’re untouchable, now.
Well, it appears that they are right. They won’t be shamed into doing the right thing, and they can’t be forced.
There will be some token grumbling from across the benches for form’s sake. But nobody is going to rock the treasure galleon that they’re all planning to plunder when they get the opportunity.
Are they apparently going after Cameron (sleazy lobbying) because he’s out of the loop or in revenge for his unwitting role in Brexit ?
They really are untouchable – nothing will happen to them. Not now and not in the future!
And why wouldn’t they when they receive such little opposition. I cannot believe how accepting of all if this the majority of people are.
Kenneth Lay would be proud. Keeping the document destruction in the family.
https://giphy.com/gifs/season-7-the-simpsons-7×17-3orif3ougJJlwlgCk0
Be kind. This is my first ever gif… Hope it’s not Borat.
Last one before I become a menace..
https://giphy.com/gifs/paidoff-trutv-paid-off-po111-2nhipZ1StKWefMFhYh
Because they are shiny-suited gangsters who are having a whale of a time playing their public schoolboy games with the public (and its money).
For years I’ve defended Conservative MPs against these sorts of accusations mainly because, thanks to the baying media mob and the Leftist parties, the threshold for guilt is so much lower than that for other MPs.
Not for this Tory government. Anything that incommodes Johnson and his ministers is just kismet.
Our glorious leaders see nothing wrong in creaming a bit off for themselves. After all they have worked so hard and are dedicated to public. They think they are entitled to it.
Same guy who was found to have acted unlawful in his honesty regarding contracts last year. Didn’t that Lib Dem guy get stuck in jail simply for lying about being the one who was caught speeding in his car?
2013, Chris Huhne, got 8 months and served 4 after a tariff reduction for pleading guilty. He voluntarily resigned as an MP.
2019, Labour darling Fiona Onasanya, a qualified solicitor, got 3 months and was out in 4 weeks despite pleading Dindu Nuffin all the way to sentencing. I had my pre-compiled and detailed complaint about lenient sentencing in within 30 seconds of the announcement, but the attorney general said “Silence, plebs.” She had to be scraped out of her seat by a recall petition, cursing and spitting and appealing her conviction.
The trajectory isn’t looking good, is it?
The fact that this kind of story is appearing in the MSM now when it has probably been known about for months suggests that the ground is being prepared for Handycock to take the fall for everything bad that’s happened.
fingers crossed
They’ll only replace him with another fall guy. All of them have to go, including the shadow PM Bill Gates.
I’ll enjoy that, so long as the foul little ape is only one of many.
Hi Annie is the previous group still up and running?
Good. Let’s hope he falls very hard.
He probably will be a fall guy and people will tut-tut and shake their heads and some sort of justice will be seen to have been done. It might even wipe the shit-eating grin off his face for a while. But if Matt Hancock goes down for mere ‘cronyism’ and not for destroying the social and economic fabric of the country, turning the public over to an international gang of sadistic medtech fascists, ruining millions of lives and generally being a sniveling, smirking and utterly contemptible little Davos sock-puppet, then he will still have won, whether he is in the government or out of it.
Fishy as this no doubt is, the risk is that it becomes a Tory-bashing exercise* rather than a fundamental critique of the whole coronanonsense industry. The deeper problem is that in the name of public health they have wasted billions, lied to us and I think some, like Hancock, are drunk on the power.
*Tory-bashing is fine if that’s your bag, just not a priority at this point
But they are the ones doing this, so they are fair game.
Fair game, but if the bashing is confined to accusations of cronyism then it’s not addressing the real issue.
The coronamadness is wrong on so many levels, and the waste of public money on a massive scale is wrong whether or not some mate of a minister is getting weighed in.
Exactly. We cannot be distracted by this. We’d be naive to imagine cronyism does not occur across the board and all walks of life. Public office is something else, maybe. But still a distraction.
Tories aided and abetted by Parliament
Even if Covid makes you lose your sense of smell, this still stinks.
There is a legal challenge to the contract candy. https://www.11kbw.com/knowledge-events/case/joseph-barrett-and-rupert-paines-act-in-major-covid-19-testing-challenge/
This is from a very good barristers’ chambers.
Sadly, when set against the scale of what has been done over the course of the last 14 months, and what we still face coming down the tracks, they are tackling no more than a side issue. Shame their focus isn’t on the bigger picture and trying to topple that.
Hope he falls head first into a shredding machine. Apologies for being petty, negative and even childish but I’ve developed a pathological hatred of the Government. Why are they ruining our lives!
I’m no fan of Matt Hancock, nor the absurd and intolerable lockdown response of the Government to covid-19.
But the facts here simply don’t add up to any meaningful level of corruption or wrongdoing.
Lockwood, Ltd. is a company that provides secure document storage and shredding services. It is mostly owned by Mr. Hancock’s brother-in-law and sister. I doubt, seriously that a) Hancock’s ministerial decisions have any meaningful effect on the amount of document storage and shredding required by the NHS, the MOD, or any other public or private body and b) I doubt, seriously, that Matt Hancock has, or even could, exert any ministerial pressure in the awarding of public contracts for document storage and shredding.
Again: No fan of Matt Hancock. No fan of lockdown. But let’s not make something out of nothing. We need, apparently, document storage and shredding companies. They have to owned by somebody. Let’s not make fools of ourselves on an issue like this.
Your defence is probably fair and if it involved a better minister who hadn’t treated the people of the U.K. appallingly over the last year I would agree with you. Unfortunately though I am now at the point where anything that creates grief for Hancock and anyone else in what is supposed to pass for the cabinet gives me enourmous pleasure.
What happened when Hancock got summoned to court the other week. I don’t recall hearing a thing about it
Surely this is a sackable offence? It would be in my job
Unsurprisingly, Labour has jumped on this story,
Who woke them up?
I’m also concerned that Hancock et al also have access to loads of confidential nhs documents and waste. Call me paranoid…
Tosser should be locked up