Smallpox contract stays in spotlight

Smallpox is a highly infectious disease

The decision to award a £32m smallpox vaccine contract to a company owned by a £50,000 Labour donor is set to come further under the spotlight.

Senior Labour MP Dr Ian Gibson has tabled a series of parliamentary questions asking about how the contract was awarded and why this particular strain of vaccine was being used in the UK.

We are going to have to look very seriously at government funding of political parties

Dr Ian Gibson

Dr Gibson - who chairs the Commons Science Committee - denied that he was suspicious about the contract.

He said PowderJect Pharmaceuticals was a good company and boss Paul Drayson was an "honourable man".

On Saturday the Conservative Party called for an independent inquiry into the issue.

That prompted the leader of one of Britain's largest unions to warn that many people believe Labour is up for sale to the highest bidder.

TGWU general secretary Bill Morris said: "A lot of people are worried that the Labour Party is abandoning its roots in favour of securing a relationship with business.

"Party leaders have to get a grip. We cannot become a party dependent on big business for funding and administration".

The government has dismissed the allegations saying there has been no impropriety.

Conservative MPs continue to press ministers about the Department of Health's contract to buy up stocks of a vaccine against a smallpox attack by terrorists, although there is no known threat.

Dr Gibson has tabled questions about the affair

The government said the contract award, confirmed on Friday, was not linked to the gift.

But Dr Gibson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We are going to have to look very seriously at government funding of political parties to take that kind of perception away.

"I don't think it's sleaze - I think we have seen that over 18 years with the last government - but not with this one ... but there's still a perception on the street as you say."

Tory vice-chairman Tim Collins, referring to previous 'cash-for-favours' claims, has suggested the contract was "another coincidence in a long chain of coincidences after Mittal, Enron and Formula One".

The contract has also infuriated other pharmaceuticals companies.

But Health Minister John Hutton said: "The reason why PowderJect was given the contract, as we've tried to make clear, was for one reason and one reason alone.

"They were the only company which could provide the type of vaccine we wanted as quickly as possible."