Covid-19: PPE Procurement

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord. As I am sure we are all aware, this is subject to a criminal investigation at the moment, so in terms of paperwork we need to let that take its due course. What I can talk about is what we are doing as a department on that, particularly in terms of the contracts for gowns which were defective, and it is in that area that we are in dispute with them. We have made a claim and put in place a process so that we will take it to court, and we will pursue that if we do not come to a negotiated settlement which is satisfactory.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

Can I take the Minister to the present rather than the past, and to two Written Answers which he gave to me yesterday on the 120 million items of PPE which are currently still stored in the People’s Republic of China and costing taxpayers £770,000 every single day—three-quarters of a million pounds, daily? I asked the Minister how much this has cost to date, but in telling me that the cost has been £16.3 million, he simply took the period of April to September. I would be grateful if he could produce a more complete set of figures and say how much longer we are going to go on paying £770,000 every day to companies linked to the People’s Republic of China, to the Chinese Communist Party, and to goods that have been made by slave labour in the Xinjiang region.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I will happily provide those updated figures in writing; I thank the noble Lord for his question because it sparked a number of inquiries on my front. As he will be aware, I am only two months into this job. But one of those very questions—a hard question for us to think about—is the cost of storage versus, dare I say, scrapping it, because we have tried to donate all we can from it, and, God forbid, having to buy it again if there is another pandemic. In many cases it is cheaper right now to scrap it and buy it again at current prices. Of course, you cannot be certain whether prices could then get inflated again, but I hope your Lordships can tell from this answer that I am very much looking into the cost-benefit of the best approach.