Business secretary urged to refer Vodafone to Covid corruption commissioner
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Legal claim alleged telecoms group benefited from government support intended for small businesses. The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, has been asked to refer Vodafone to the Covid corruption commissioner, after a legal claim alleged the £18bn telecoms group benefited from government pandemic support intended for small businesses.
The request to examine the conduct of the FTSE 100 company follows last month’s high court claim by current and former Vodafone franchisees, which alleged the company “unjustly enriched” itself at the expense of scores of vulnerable small business owners who were running the group’s high street stores.
In a letter to Reynolds, John Hayes, a Conservative MP and former minister, said: “Given the allegations about potential misuse of government Covid financial assistance, will your department refer these allegations to the ongoing inquiry into potential misappropriation of public funds during the pandemic, and the Covid corruption commissioner?”.
Last month Rachel Reeves appointed Tom Hayhoe, a former Conservative cabinet adviser, as her Covid corruption commissioner with the remit of clawing back billions of pounds in fraudulent contracts. While Hayhoe is initially reviewing the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE), he has powers to scrutinise general government pandemic spending to ensure “everything possible has been done to recover public funds in other Covid schemes including furlough, Covid grants and bounce back loans”.
