NICOLA Sturgeon has slammed the UK Government after Dominic Cummings said he was instrumental in awarding a government contract to a company run by his and Michael Gove’s friends.

Campaigners are taking legal action against the Cabinet Office over the payment of more than £500,000 of taxpayers’ money to research firm Public First. The contract was given to the company without a formal tendering process or advertisement.

Speaking during FMQs the First Minister responded to Scottish Tory stand-in leader Ruth Davidson, who pressed Sturgeon on an Audit Scotland report on Scottish Government preparedness going into the pandemic. The report found there had been key planning failures at the onset of the pandemic relating to personal protective equipment (PPE) and social care capacity.

Sturgeon said her Government would consider the findings of the report. She said that Scotland “has never once ran out of PPE” and that when it was found distribution mechanisms had to be improved, they were done “rapidly”.

READ MORE: Dominic Cummings denies asking for a government contract be given to 'friends'

Referring to the Cummings revelations, Sturgeon added: “Not by giving contracts to our political chums the way some other governments have, but actually by building that domestic supply chain.

“Before this pandemic there was effectively zero Scottish PPE manufacturing, we were fully reliant on imports, but over this winter period nearly half of all PPE that is being used in Scotland is being supplied from Scotland.”

Public First’s directors and owners are James Frayne and Rachel Wolf – both former colleagues of Cummings and Cabinet Office Minister Gove. Wolf also co-wrote the Conservative party’s election manifesto in 2010. The Good Law project, a not-for-profit crowdfunded legal campaign, has brought a judicial review, despite attempts by the UK Government to have the case dismissed.

Cummings described Frayne and Wolf as his “friends” but added: “Obviously I did not request Public First be brought in because they were my friends. I would never do such a thing.”

Sturgeon also hit back at Scottish Labour stand-in leader Jackie Baillie, who also questioned the First Minister on the Audit Scotland report. Baillie said: “Had the First Minister listened to the warnings about the threat facing social care in a pandemic and yes in the context of flu pandemic planning too, lives could have been saved. Why didn’t she?”

Sturgeon replied: “Firstly I have, on not one single day since this pandemic struck, hidden or tried to hide in any way. In fact on the days, many of the days, I think, when I’ve been seeking to the best of my ability to lead this country through the pandemic, Jackie Baillie has been writing letters to the BBC trying to stop me briefing the public on a daily basis.

“So perhaps it is the fact that this Government has shown leadership that Jackie Baillie finds quite so difficult to take.”

​READ MORE: SNP demand action on corruption after Dominic Cummings' Covid contract admission

The First Minister was also challenged to find cash in the Budget to give all primary school pupils free school meals. Scottish Greens Holyrood co-leader Patrick Harvie made the plea as he claimed “getting food to hungry children is a postcode lottery in Glasgow”.

He raised the issue after pictures on social media showed scores of people queuing up for emergency food parcels in the snow. Harvie, a Glasgow MSP, branded the images an “indictment on the failure to tackle poverty and hunger in Scotland”.

Raising the issue at FMQs, he added: “This level of desperation is happening in the city both the First Minister and I represent.”

The SNP has already promised to provide free breakfasts and lunches to all primary children throughout the year if re-elected in May – a policy that would be brought in from August 2022.

Sturgeon said her party has “made clear if we are returned to government then that is exactly what we will do, free school meals to all primary pupils and children in early years, all year round”.