The Duchess of York and the Dubai royal family offered to help ministers secure PPE in the early months of the COVID-19 crisis, the inquiry into the pandemic has heard.
Sarah Ferguson, who was formerly married to Prince Andrew, made her offer of assistance as officials tried to get hold of personal protective equipment such as gloves and aprons in spring 2020.
An email from April of that year – the month after the first UK lockdown was announced – was presented on Thursday during the evidence of Dawn Matthias, who joined the PPE procurement team at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic .
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The message, which was sent among her colleagues, said: “The Duchess of York has been in contact with [government PPE adviser] Lord Deighton to try and help source PPE.
“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”.
Ms Matthias said the offer had come to officials via former minister Michael Gove and Conservative peer Lord Agnew.
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Shown the email relating to the duchess, she was asked by Jamie Shara, counsel to the inquiry, if 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 replied.
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Asked whether a team member was tasked with handling referrals specifically from high-profile people, Ms Matthias said: “From memory and from my understanding, royalty was sensitively handled by very senior people.”
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.”
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Details of the unexpected offers came as the inquiry continued to hear evidence in its fifth module, relating to procurement.
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Thursday’s evidence looked at the so-called high-priority lane which was used to try to secure contracts quickly.
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The inquiry was established to examine the UK’s response to and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and to learn lessons for the future.
The first part of the day’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.
