The Department for Education publishes an annual report each year. Pages 223 and 224 of the 2019-2020 report list related party transactions for board members in place at the end of March 2020 — the month after Michelle Donelan was appointed Minister of State for Universities. Her entry reads that her spouse and his family are owners of Allington IP Limited and its subsidiary V12 Footwear.
Related parties: spouse and family are owners of Allington IP Limited and subsidiary V12 Footwear, Chippenham. Both are family companies owned by brothers Ben and Andrew Turner, members of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church.
The Turner Family Network
Allington IP and V12 Footwear are Chippenham-based family companies owned and directed by brothers Ben and Andrew Turner and their families — all PBCC members. Tom Turner, son of Ben and Sarah Turner, is Michelle Donelan's partner. He resigned as a director of V12 Footwear in September 2019, but continued working for the family business until June 2020 and is declared as a related party in her March 2020 DfE report.
Toffeln — The First PBCC DHSC Contract
On 4 April 2020 and 16 April 2020, Toffeln Ltd was awarded two contracts by the Department of Health & Social Care for the supply of PPE. The total value was approximately £4 million. The 4 April contract is notable as one of the very first DHSC PPE contracts awarded at the start of the pandemic — and Toffeln became the first company owned by a PBCC member to win a DHSC contract.
The V12 Footwear and Toffeln brands collaborated to create a self-protection PPE range. Toffeln also benefited from the NHS hospital trust contracts listed above.
OnemediUK — Ben Turner and the £800m+ Network
In March 2020 — the month Donelan was appointed minister and the month the first PPE contracts began — Ben Turner was appointed a director of OnemediUK, a dormant company believed to have been set up to provide medical insurance for PBCC members. His co-directors in that company connect to a further £800 million or more in Covid contracts.
"Ben Turner's Toffeln was the first PBCC company to win a DHSC contract. His fellow directors in OnemediUK are linked to over £800 million more."
Brethren Exposed Investigation — October 2021Stronghold Global — Tom Turner's Employer and the UBT Address
Tom Turner now works as Commercial Director at Stronghold Global Ltd, a family business run by members of the wider Turner family. The company was originally incorporated in 2012 as Millform Products by the Shore family, before being transferred to the Turner family.
In May 2020, Stronghold Global's registered address transferred to Poseidon Way, Warwick — the same address as UBT, the central business support partner for PBCC companies. In August 2020 it transferred again to Bumpers Way, Chippenham — an industrial park for which Michelle Donelan has campaigned to improve road traffic management.
Stronghold Global currently employs nine members of the Turner family: Max, Roddy, Tim, Lydia, Katrina, Campbell, Marine, Luke and Sam — offspring and spouses of Ben, Andrew, Jerry and Stuart Turner. Whether this represents a family that has largely left the PBCC, or one that remains within the fellowship, is unclear — either would represent a significant event in Brethren community terms.
The Parliamentary Question — Tower Supplies
In 2018, Michelle Donelan raised a question in Parliament about Tower Supplies having been unsuccessful in a tender for a government contract. She stated that one of her constituents was a director of the company and had raised the issue. Based on company records, the only Tower Supplies director living in her constituency at the time was Jerry Turner — Tom's uncle and the brother of Ben Turner. Tower Supplies is another Covid contract winner in the PBCC network.
The Timeline
The Young Britons Foundation Connection
The Plough Pub
There is also an ongoing community dispute regarding the Plough Inn at Kington Langley — a 400-year-old listed pub adjacent to the Chippenham Gospel Hall, purchased by a Brethren member. The local Kington Communities Enterprise group has been campaigning for it to be designated an Asset of Community Value. Objections to this designation appear to have come from local Brethren members, including Ben Turner.
Summary
A Conservative government minister whose partner's father owns a company that won the first PBCC DHSC PPE contract. Fellow directors of a company they jointly joined in March 2020 who are linked to £800 million more in Covid contracts. A Parliamentary question in 2018 that appears to relate to the partner's uncle's company. A registered address for the partner's employer that briefly transferred to the UBT offices in Warwick — the central business hub for PBCC companies — in May 2020, while those contracts were being awarded.