Sarah, Duchess of York offered to help secure PPE in pandemic, inquiry told

Sarah, Duchess of York was among the people who offered to try to help secure PPE in the early months of the Covid crisis, an inquiry has heard.

The royal family in Dubai also got in touch with the UK government, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry was told, as officials endeavoured to get hold of protective equipment such as gloves and aprons in the early days of the pandemic in spring 2020.

The inquiry was shown an email dated April 2020 – weeks after the first lockdown was announced – as it heard evidence from Dawn Matthias, who was seconded into the team aiming to secure PPE at the start of the pandemic.

“She has some contacts who have access to PPE in China and wants to be able to get these through the system.”

A separate email that had been sent by Ms Matthias at the start of April said that “we received an offer of help from the Royal Family in Dubai”.

She said it had come to officials via former minister Michael Gove and Conservative peer Lord Agnew.

After being shown the email in relation to the duchess, Ms Matthias was asked by counsel to the inquiry Jamie Sharma whether there was  “any training or guidance about dealing with people who were senior or high up or connected for example to the royal family?”

“Not specifically, no,” she said.

She added: “I don’t recall it ever being an issue and don’t recall it ever being widely discussed or ever receiving any direction that if I for example was directly approached by the Duchess of York for example I was forbidden to deal with that or not.”

The evidence was heard as the inquiry continued to hear evidence in the probe’s fifth module, relating to procurement.

Thursday’s evidence looked at the so-called high priority lane which was used to try to secure contracts quickly.

The first part of Thursday’s evidence was heard in a private session to avoid prejudicing an ongoing investigation into PPE Medpro, a firm linked to Baroness Michelle Mone and her partner Doug Barrowman.