UK : The health minister who oversaw the award of Covid contracts replaced his mobile phone before it could be searched for information relevant to £85m of deals that are subject to a legal challenge.
Lord Bethell is one of those under scrutiny over the way contracts for PPE and Covid tests were awarded at the height of the pandemic.
As part of legal proceedings issued by the Good Law Project, the government is expected to disclose Bethell’s correspondence including by email, WhatsApp and SMS relating to the award of £85m of contracts for antibody tests to Abingdon Health.
The secretary of state has a responsibility to preserve and search documents for information relevant to the case from the point at which judicial review proceedings were issued in late 2020, under the government’s “duty of candour”.
However, a witness statement from a government lawyer revealed Bethell replaced his phone in early 2021 and it may no longer be possible to retrieve the information about his dealings with Abingdon, although efforts are being made to recover them from his mobile phone provider.
The statement said Bethell had used his official email account as well as his private email account to send and receive emails relevant to the contracts, and that he had also used his mobile phone for SMS and WhatsApp messages. But it said Lord Bethell had confirmed that about six months ago his phone was broken and replaced and that his new phone did not contain the phone data.
