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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Rowena Mason Whitehall editor

Michael Gove lobbied by Covid VIP lane’s biggest winner of PPE contracts

Michael Gove
Michael Gove. The Cabinet Office has stressed no ministers were involved in procurement decisions during the coronavirus pandemic. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Michael Gove was lobbied by the firm that became the single biggest recipient of PPE contracts through the VIP lane in 2020 in the weeks before it was awarded the first of a series of deals worth £680m, new emails reveal.

Emails released by the government show Gove, then a Cabinet Office minister, had a phone call with a founder of Unispace, an office interior design firm, on 24 March 2020 – the day after the first national lockdown was announced.

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