Rachel Reeves – 2021 Comments on Covid Contracts

The comments made by Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, on 22 April 2021.

The scale of corruption risk to vast amounts of taxpayer money revealed in this report is shocking, as is the evidence of endemic cronyism flowing through the government’s contracting.

Standards on public contracts have slipped so far under this Conservative government that this would be embarrassing if it wasn’t so serious.

Labour have consistently asked for the government to get the basics right – calling on them to publish the names of businesses that won lucrative Covid contracts through the ‘VIP fast lane’, ramp up transparency and come clean to taxpayers about the £2 billion worth of contracts that have gone to Tory friends and donors.

Instead they’ve let cronyism and sleaze run through the core of their procurement and contracting.

A Labour government would introduce an Integrity and Ethics Commission to clean up cronyism and raise standards for good.