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Dear Sirs
Re: Letter before action and pre-action protocol correspondence for judicial review re Project
Moonshot
We write further to our pre-action protocol (“PAP”) letter of 22 September 2020, which was in response to yours
of 17 September 2020, and in response to your further letter of 24 September 2020, all in relation to “Project
Moonshot” which concerns the possibility of mass asymptomatic population testing for Covid-19 as an
alternative to lockdown.
We have already explained that we will be responding substantively to the points in your letter of 17 September
2020 and that we would do so by no later than 5 October 2020.
As you will no doubt appreciate, our Government clients are under substantial pressure in dealing with the
coronavirus pandemic, including arrangements for handling the current increase in infections that is being
widely reported, and the equally widely reported urgent need for yet further testing. In addition, the information
you seek does not exist on a central database and will need to be collated from a variety of sources. In these
circumstances we do not accept your criticism of our clients proposing to take a mere two days beyond the
default PAP deadline for a substantive response. Having said that, we do take such deadlines seriously and
intend, if at all possible, to respond by the end of this week, i.e. no later than the 2 October 2020.
We note that you have sought, by your latest letter, to add further potential grounds and clients (letter of 24
September 2020, paragraphs 5, 6 and 10). Although this is therefore in substance a new PAP letter, to which
we would have a further 14 days to respond, we are prepared to do so within the same time frame as above.
Given the content of the rest of your letter of 24 September 2020, we thought it would assist if we explained as
follows below, in advance of our PAP response. We stress that this is without prejudice to any further points
that may be raised, or arguments relied upon, in our substantive PAP response.
As you yourself acknowledge, there is only very limited information currently available to your clients. On this
narrow evidential basis your clients are speculating that there is “a decision (or decisions) ... to spend one
Bindmans LLP
236 Gray's Inn Road
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WC1X 8HB
By email only
Commercial Law Group
102 Petty France
Westminster
London
SW1H 9GL
DX 123243, Westminster 12 www.gov.uk/gld
Your ref: 272700/3.JPOT.EVAR.LPLU
Our ref: Z2009830/JTS/CLGA
28 September 2020
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hundred billion pounds of public money on what seems to be a speculative project predicated on technology
that does not exist.”
We can inform you that, to the contrary, there has been no decision to approve and commit £100 billion of
public money, or anything approaching this amount, whether to “Project Moonshot” or at all in relation to mass
asymptomatic population testing for Covid-19.
It follows that your clients’ stated concerns, which they proposed to address by way of judicial review (see
paragraph 1.5 of the letter of 17 September 2020), found upon a fundamental misconception.
In the premises, there is also neither a need nor an entitlement for your clients to receive the information they
seek to an accelerated timescale, since the urgent threat which they seek to portray does not exist.
For the avoidance of doubt, we can assure you that our clients have their obligations under the public
procurement regulations well in mind. In relation to your specific request regarding your latest clients we
confirm that our clients have not signed, and will not in the next two weeks be signing, any contracts for
“provision of facilities, planning and storage” in relation to “Project Moonshot”.
We trust that the above explains why any urgent applications, such as you threaten (albeit without specificity) in
your latest letter, would be both unnecessary and misconceived. They would in any event be strenuously
resisted.
Yours faithfully
For the Treasury Solicitor