Covid-19: Conflicts of Interest

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend makes a very good point. I cannot tell him how long it would typically take but I can tell him that if everything went as smoothly as possible, 25 days is the absolute minimum that a procurement process could take. That is why, on 18 March, new guidelines for procurement were put in place. The PPE team converted those into a very diligent eight-step process, the effectiveness of which the NAO has paid tribute to. We have put in place exactly the kind of reasonable processes necessary to respond to a pandemic like this, resulting in the purchase of billions of items of PPE to protect those on the front line of our healthcare.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I do not discount the many problems the Minister has talked about, but the displeasure—disgust, even—of the public often arises as a result of the National Audit Office uncovering information reactively, for example. What we need is a more proactive lookout for these problems, either in the Cabinet or the Cabinet Office. If the Minister says it is there, I would suggest that the National Audit Office is saying that it does not work very well.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am not sure that that is what the National Audit Office has said. It has, very reasonably, alighted on the importance of transparency and the declaration of interests, values that any reasonable Minister or public servant would subscribe to. The Cabinet Office itself has played a very energetic role during the entire pandemic, providing the systems, support and people, including contract staff, to make sure those values are upheld.