Michael Lambert: Surely the Biggest Waste of Money in UK History

Jul 13, 2024 | The new Labour government have said that they will pursue those who are believed to have supplied inferior or unusable PPE. This will be difficult. There is no case to answer where suppliers overcharged and those who supplied unsuitable or unusable PPE may well have moved their profits offshore and liquidated their companies.

The former government's Test and Trace under the management of Dido Harding was a catastrophic waste of public money. £35 billion pounds was budgeted although only £28 billion was actually spent. This compares to £18.3 billion for the entire Cross Rail project, at the time the biggest construction project in Europe involving 60 miles of new track, 25 of them in two tunnels under London, new stations, signalling and 30 new trains.

Test and Trace was a failure and the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee questioned if it had been of any benefit at all. Thousands of consultants were employed at an average of £1,100 per day each for many months.

Test and Trace was surely the biggest waste ever of public money in the UK.