An acquaintance and former neighbour of Matt Hancock is supplying the government with tens of millions of vials for NHS Covid-19 tests despite having had no previous experience of producing medical supplies.
Alex Bourne, who used to run a pub close to Hancock’s former constituency home in Suffolk, said he initially offered his services to the UK health secretary several months ago by sending him a personal WhatsApp message.
Bourne’s company, Hinpack, was at that time producing plastic cups and takeaway boxes for the catering industry. It is now supplying about 2m medical grade vials a week to the government via a distributor contracted by the NHS.
Bourne categorically denies he profited from his personal contact with Hancock. However, the case raises questions for the health secretary and is likely to reignite the row over alleged government cronyism during the pandemic.
Contacted last week by the Guardian, Bourne’s lawyers flatly denied that their client had any discussions with Hancock in relation to Covid-19 supplies.
However, on Monday, after being confronted with further details about his interactions with the health secretary, Bourne backtracked. In a phone call with the Guardian, he conceded that he has in fact exchanged text and email messages with Hancock over several months.
He also participated in an industry Zoom meeting in August attended by Hancock, Boris Johnson and several dozen suppliers in the Covid test-and-trace programme.
Bourne said he sent his WhatsApp message to Hancock’s mobile number on 30 March offering his services amid a nationwide call to arms to respond to the pandemic. Bourne said he opened the exchange: “Hello, it’s Alex Bourne from Thurlow.”
Until the end of 2017 when they leased it out, Bourne and his wife had run the Cock Inn, a village pub in Thurlow a few hundred yards from Hancock’s former constituency home. The Conservative cabinet minister was a supporter of the pub, attending its reopening after refurbishment in 2016 and nominating it for an award in 2017. Hancock posted a photo of himself pulling a pint with Bourne on his parliamentary website. Hancock moved in 2018.
Bourne said his initial hope was that his packaging firm might be able to retool to provide personal protective equipment (PPE). Hancock messaged back, according to Bourne, directing him to a Department of Health and Social Care website, where he formally submitted details of the work his firm could do. Bourne’s lawyers said there was no further follow-up with Hancock.
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A week or two later, around mid-April, Bourne said a major distributor of medical products that he had never heard of called him asking if he could produce specialist Covid-related items such as drop-wells and pipette tips. His company Hinpack was not deemed suitable for that job.
Later that month, Bourne said he was called back by the same distributor. The firm, which already had a general government contract in place to supply the NHS regularly when Covid struck, said it had been asked by the government to supply test tubes. Bourne persuaded the firm he could produce the vials, and said he also discussed Hinpack’s work with two civil servants representing the DHSC.
By June, after engaging the assistance of external advisers and regulatory experts, Bourne was producing large quantities of medical vials. He said he was now making about 2m vials a week, as well as about 500,000 plastic funnels for test samples.
In August, he switched distributor, and is now supplying the same tubes via Alpha Laboratories, which also had a pre-existing contract with DHSC. In a statement, Alpha Laboratories said: “Although we were aware Alex Bourne had met Mr Hancock, this was irrelevant to our discussions as we were sourcing from Hinpack a price-competitive product for the NHS supply chain which fitted within our product range.”
A Suffolk local and friend of Bourne’s, Sukhvinder Dhat, said he had regularly seen Hancock in the pub when he lived in the village and claimed that Bourne and Hancock were “friends” and “buddies”. Bourne’s lawyers denied that characterisation, saying Bourne does not now have a “close personal connection” with the health secretary.
In his call with the Guardian, Bourne also played down his relationship with Hancock. “I’ve never once been to his house,” he said. “He’s never been to mine. I’ve never once had a drink with him.” A spokesperson from the DHSC said: “We do not comment on the secretary of state’s personal relationships.”
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