STAGGERING

£762m wasted as Tories failed to check Covid kit

- BY LIZZY BUCHAN

TORY failure to test stockpiled PPE for up to two years has cost the taxpayer £762million.

Boris Johnson's government ordered mountains of personal protective equipment as the pandemic took hold, which was piled in shipping containers as storage facilities were overwhelmed.

But long delays on checking the surplus surgical gowns, masks and visors purchased in 2020 and 2021 meant that warranties had expired by the time it was found to be faulty.

This means that taxpayers' cash cannot be recovered through the courts and must be written off.

The failure has been uncovered as part of a year-long probe by the Covid counter-fraud commissioner.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves tasked Tom Hayhoe in December with trying to claw back public money lost to fraud and waste during the pandemic.

His first challenge was to review £8.7billion of Covid PPE that had to be written off the government's books.