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Michael Gove personally lobbied Government officials to ensure that the award of a multimillion pound Covid testing contract to a Conservative donor and Brexit supporter was “unblocked”.
On March 31 2020, one week after the UK entered into the first national lockdown, the then Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove received an email from Toby Baxendale – Director of the covid testing firm Ciga Healthcare.
Baxendale previously donated over £50,000 to the Conservative party, with his wife Catherine donating a further £50,000 and he was also a founding member of the right leaning think-tank the Cobden Centre.
In the email, which was disclosed to Byline Times following a freedom of Information request, Baxendale urged Gove to take action regarding his company’s bid to supply antibody tests.
The pro-Brexit businessman was highly critical of the Government’s Chief Medical Office, Chris Whitty and Chief Scientist Patrick Vallance, who he described in the email as being like “hardened Remainers” who were “closed to any alternative views”.
Baxendale pushed for Gove to “act with [his] instincts and take control” of the process, against the perceived wishes of the Government’s senior health officials, claiming that by doing so the Conservative minister would “save the nation”.
The message appears to have had an effect, given just 48 hours later, Gove then emailed the former Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill and other top civil servants working within No.10 on behalf of Baxendale, urging for any delays in the contract award to Ciga to be “unblocked”.
Gove’s email to Sedwill stated that: “I was contacted by