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CONTROVERSIAL pandemic profiteers Serco and Amazon have been urged to apply for New Year’s honours despite being at the centre of Covid rows, a major Whitehall data leak has revealed.
The companies are amongst a number of businesses and industry giants asked to nominate staff members for a gong from the Queen in a list accidentally leaked by bungling officials.
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The top civil servant at the Business department wrote to firms including Capita, investment giants Blackrock and BP.
Tech giants Facebook, Google and Apple were also given the nod.
Serco boss Rupert Soames was amongst those to receive the letter. As were consulting giants Mckinsey, PWC and Deloitte and Bain.
Sarah Munby, the BEIS permanent secretary, wrote: “I would like to invite you to submit Honours nominations on behalf of your organisation as well as for any other individuals you think worthy of recognition.”
She also invited the bosses to online classes on “how to master and award honours nomination.”
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Vaccine heroes Astrazeneca and Pfizer have also been asked to put forward staff to be rewarded.
The personal contact details of some of Britain’s most powerful business bosses were included in the email accidentally CC’d to all of them on Wednesday morning.
The email addresses of leading union bosses were also included in the blunder.
Royal Mail bosses, banking giants, rail and energy chiefs were also asked to come forward with names.
As was the under fire Post Office and accounting giants who are never far from controversy.
The leak appears to be a major breach of GDPR rules as well as major embarrassment to ministers amid a number of Covid rows.
It comes just a day after the Test and Trace programme – part run by Serco – was slammed by MPs as a waste of money.
And Amazon have been locked in a number of rows with the Treasury about their tax and impact on Britain’s high streets.
Rachel Reeves MP, Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, branded the letter “unbelievable.”
‘UNBELIEVABLE’
She added: “The Conservatives’ priorities: a pay cut for our nurses and a gong for Serco. The mask is slipping.”
Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “This is beggars belief.
“On the day Test & Trace was slammed for costing the taxpayer billions while failing to control this horrific virus its staggering government were offering to spray gongs around like confetti to firms involved.
“Ministers should be focusing on fixing Test and Trace not offering up rewards for failure.”
Last night Beis said they had apologised to the firms.
They said: “As part of the New Year’s Honours process, we work with a wide range of business groups and other stakeholders to encourage an ever-increasingly wide and diverse spread of nominations.
“But to be clear, these emails do not indicate that any specific individual is being actively considered for New Year’s Honours and any nominations received still need to go through a comprehensive, independent consideration process.
“BEIS takes its information and data handling responsibilities very seriously under the UK GDPR. We have contacted the parties concerned to apologise for the error and taken steps to mitigate any further incidents.”
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