Dido Harding personally intervened to add a former Sainsbury’s colleague to the shortlist to be head of Covid testing alongside candidates with a public health or health logistics background, a court has heard. The high court is being asked to rule on whether the government acted unlawfully with respect to the appointments of Harding, a Conservative peer, and Mike Coupe, formerly CEO of Sainsbury’s, to leading roles at NHS test and trace without competition. On Tuesday, the court was told that Harding, who was herself appointed as chair of NHS test and trace within hours of a shortlist being drawn up, added Coupe to a shortlist of candidates that had been created by the Department of Health and Social Care from candidates selected by an agency. In written submissions, Jason Coppel QC, acting for the claimants, Runnymede Trust and the Good Law Project, said: “Baroness Harding intervened to add Mike Coupe to the shortlist of candidates. The recruitment agency had not recommended him. Mr Coupe’s most significant professional experience is as the former CEO of Sainsbury’s … “Mr Coupe has no public health or health logistics background. This should be contrasted with the specialist experience of the other candidates … This evidence should then be contrasted with what is said to have been Baroness Harding’s unevidenced assertion that Mr Coupe had the most ‘transferrable experience’.” Harding alone interviewed two shortlisted candidates as well as Coupe, although he was the only one she interviewed in person, the court heard. Coppel described Harding’s conduct as presenting an “obvious appearance of bias”. As well as bias, the claimants allege indirect discrimination and breach of the public sector equality duty in the appointments that are the subject of the legal challenge. They say that Harding and Coupe’s appointments to NHS test and trace as well as the former’s subsequent appointment to head up what is now the UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA) were made in such a way that they were only open to a “tight circle” of friends and contacts of Conservative politicians. As well as the individual decisions, they are challenging what they say is an unlawful policy, which they allege disadvantages the unconnected, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities. Coppel said Harding’s appointment to NHS test and trace was decided within three hours of a recruitment agency submitting a list of 21 candidates. “Baroness Harding’s experience is not such that it was obvious, without any selection process, that she was uniquely qualified for the role,” said Coppel. “In 2017, Baroness Harding was appointed as the chair of NHS Improvement … Prior to that role, she had no experience as a public administrator in the public health sector. She is the wife of the former Conservative minister John Penrose, who is the prime minister’s ‘anti-corruption champion’, and she is a personal friend of former prime minister David Cameron. Her most high-profile professional experience was as the former chief executive of the TalkTalk group.” The court heard that, in internal emails, civil servants referred to “two breaches” in the recruitment process at NHS test and trace, and described the process to appoint Harding as “ludicrous”. One said: “I am worried that all of these appointments are being made on the fly.” Another email by a civil servant expressed concern that the process to appoint Harding could ride “roughshod over some very basic principles that underpin our system (eg democratic accountability)“. Coppel said Harding’s appointment to head what would become the UKSHA was taken “with no recruitment process whatsoever”. The case, brought against the health secretary, Sajid Javid, and Boris Johnson, the prime minister, continues.