Covid-19: Personal Protective Equipment

Debate between Lord Bethell and Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale

Thursday 23rd April 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

Lord Hannay of Chiswick. Lord Hannay? We will go on to the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay of Cartvale.

[Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale (Lab)]

My Lords, I have been puzzled—not for the first time—on the PPE distribution question. The UK has always had a system and structure of deciding on priorities of threats to the security and well-being of the United Kingdom. Pandemics have been on that list and given very high priority for a number of years. If that system is functioning, as it normally does very well, how can we have this problem of production, procurement and distribution of PPE? Is it working as it used to? If not, is that because there has been a lack of resources into it in recent years?

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Baroness is right to question the resilience arrangements in this country. I reassure her that we have extremely well thought-through resilience arrangements. This disease, though, is more infectious than we could possibly have imagined. The need for PPE is higher than we had originally planned for. In the NHS we have an organisation in which efficiency and supply management has been put at a very high level. However, we have moved incredibly quickly to put in place central supply organisations. The entire weight of government is working hard to ensure that PPE is distributed widely and fairly throughout the system.