DHSC rejected as ‘unusable’ PPE supplied by company linked to Lord Chadlington, which later went bust
T
hey were the lucrative deals that epitomised the “VIP lane” set up by Boris Johnson’s government during the Covid pandemic, which gave priority for personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts to people with political connections.
Peter Gummer, a former PR boss who has been Tory peer Lord Chadlington since 1996, had smooth access at his fingertips. The erstwhile adviser to John Major has “close personal friendships with many senior Conservative party politicians”, he has said, and as president of the Witney constituency association in the Cotswolds is “close friends” with its most notable MP: David Cameron.
When the pandemic reached Britain early in 2020, Chadlington was a director and shareholder of a company registered in Jersey, majority-owned and run by David Sumner, a serial entrepreneur then based in Dubai.
