Jess Phillips rinses Matt Hancock over PPE contract controversy

Jess Phillips ripped into former health secretary Matt Hancock last night following allegations he helped the former landlord of his local pub obtain a coronavirus contract.

The multimillion-pound contract to supply test tubes for NHS Covid-19 testing has caused outrage, with Labour chairwoman Anneliese Dodds urging Hancock to “set the record straight” and withdraw his remark that it was a “fabrication” to suggest his pal and West Suffolk constituent Alex Bourne applied for or received a contract from the government or NHS.

Dodds isn’t the only one to rinse Hancock, with Labour MP Phillips last night laying into the Tory MP on ITV’s Peston.

Speaking out about Hancock’s latest controversy, Phillips said: “What an absolute load of rubbish… did anybody else’s friends get a contract? Mine didn’t. None of my friends are on those lists.”

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The camera then cut to Hancock who pulled an expression akin to a bulldog chewing a wasp.

Phillips continued by explaining what the pandemic was like for her, saying she had to watch PPE being exported from her constituency while care homes asked if they could borrow goggles from the local school.

She also said she had to jump through hoops to help victims of domestic violence access public funds and questioned why some “[don’t] have to qualify by the same rules”.

Hancock acknowledged that it was hard to get PPE last year as “the whole world was trying to get it”. Perhaps trying to flip it around, he said Labour party donors “got those contracts too”.

Interjecting, Phillips said: “We were trying to get that stuff, the owner of that company in my constituency was trying to get it into the government. I had endless phone calls… it’s funny because they were already a provider, however some people’s friends who weren’t providers somehow managed to get through the line.”

Twitter enjoyed the encounter, with LBC presenter James O’Brien summing up what we’re all thinking by commenting: “Oof”.

In the replies Phillips shared a Telegraph article from last April that detailed how PPE was being exported from Britain despite the shortages.

Last night’s appearance on ITV’s Peston was Hancock’s first TV appearance since he quit the frontbench after snogging his personal aide, despite the government’s coronavirus restrictions at the time.

Speaking last night, he said the kissing scandal had "blown up every part of my life".

But now he’s embroiled in yet another controversy as the questions continue surrounding the coronavirus contract.

The Mail on Sunday, following a contested Freedom of Information request, obtained messages between Hancock and former pub landlord Bourne in which the MP personally referred a plea for business to Jonathan Marron, at the time the director-general of community and social care at the Department of Health.

A message from Bourne, who runs a food packaging company, initially raised the possibility of making personal protective equipment (PPE) such as surgical face masks, before later exchanges reveal a switch to producing items involved in coronavirus testing.

On Tuesday Hancock said he wanted to formally put it “on the record” that “the man in question never got nor applied for a contract from the Government or the NHS at all.”

He slammed it as a “fabrication pushed by the Labour party” and “a load of rubbish.”

What a mess.

Indy100 has contacted Hancock to comment on this story.

Additional reporting by PA.