Firm with links to Newmarket and Hancock fails to deliver on £14m PPE contract

A Newmarket racecourse director and prominent stud owner with links to health secretary Matt Hancock was unable to deliver on a contract to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) worth £14.4 million during the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic last year.

Frances Stanley, a director at Newmarket racecourse and the National Horseracing Museum, blamed “unforeseen logistical circumstances” for the failure of CH&L Limited, a company she became a director of in June, to deliver isolation gowns for healthcare workers.

Documents which emerged this week showed CH&L Limited, a company incorporated in January last year by the Newmarket-based Chinese medicine practitioner Chunlei Li, was awarded the multi-million-pound contract by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) as it scrambled to acquire supplies of PPE for NHS staff.

Stanley, whose husband Peter runs his family's New England Stud on the outskirts of the town and who is the sister-in-law of Lord Derby, became a director of the company in June and assumed significant control later in the year, according to Companies House.

She played down any formal links to Hancock, whose West Suffolk constituency contains Newmarket and who received a £5,000 donation from Peter Stanley in 2019, according to the Electoral Commission.

As the PPE contract was unfulfilled, a deposit payment was returned to the DHSC.

Contacted by the Racing Post, Frances Stanley said: “We had wanted to help source PPE at a time when the country urgently needed supplies and so put forward a detailed proposal to DHSC.

“This proposal was accepted and a deposit was paid by DHSC. However, due to unforeseen logistical circumstances, we weren't able to help and the deposit was returned in full to DHSC.

“I had planned to donate any profits to a local charity. At no point did I ever talk to Matt Hancock about our plans to help, only DHSC purchasing officials involved in the process.”

The agreement was denounced by Labour MP Angela Rayner as part of wider criticism of the awarding of £881m in government contracts during the coronavirus pandemic to Conservative Party donors.

Stanley, 55, rode in the 2016 Newmarket Town Plate, which Hancock also participated in, while she met the high-profile MP two years ago to discuss rail services in the region alongside Newmarket supremo Amy Starkey and Rachel Hood, the owner, breeder and wife of champion Flat trainer John Gosden.

Stanley's husband Peter is a steward at Newmarket's owner, The Jockey Club, a position also held by Cheltenham Gold Cup-winning owner Baroness Dido Harding, who was appointed to lead the government's Covid-19 track-and-trace system last year.

Newmarket recently became the latest racecourse to operate as a mass vaccination hub, alongside the likes of Epsom, Newcastle and Newbury, as part of the government’s inoculation programme.

Stanley added: “I think it's great that racing and Newmarket are doing their bit to help in the national effort to tackle the pandemic.”

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