The New Dark Age

The Tories spent £3.8bn on PPE through the so-called VIP lane – but now we can reveal they overpaid by at least £925m.

We’ve run the numbers on an internal health department document, and the contracts signed with VIP lane companies cost an average of 80% more.

Some of them were paid at even higher rates than that. The average price for medical gowns was £5.87. But the gowns bought from Meller Designs Ltd – a fashion company run by a Tory donor – cost more than twice that: £12.64.

And more than a quarter of this VIP lane stuff was just no good. One deal brokered by an adviser under Liz Truss wasted more than £145m on unusable masks.

We’re uncovering more and more of these dodgy deals. But we couldn’t do it without your backing.