Personal Protective Equipment: Accounting
Debate between Lord Kamall and Lord Wood of Anfield(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice. I remind the House of my interests as a director of the Good Law Project.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
Throughout the pandemic, our absolute priority has been saving lives; £8.7 billion of the personal protective equipment inventory has been written down, not written off. This does not mean that it is unusable. The accounts make it clear that only 3% of the items purchased were not fit for any use. The majority of the impairment reflects the fact that the Government bought in a globally inflated market. It was better to do that than risk running out of PPE and risk lives.
Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Global inflation was clearly part of this, but of the extraordinary 72% of PPE spend that has now been written down, £670 million was on defective equipment, £750 million was on PPE that was past its expiry date and £2.6 billion was on unsuitable supplies—if you add it all up, that is enough to build more than a dozen new hospitals. Apparently, Ministers now cannot locate a further £3.6 billion in supplies, and a further £1.2 billion is again being written down on advance orders for this year. Can the Minister pledge today to have a full investigation into PPE procurement processes, particularly into how it became possible for some suppliers, funnelled through the VIP lane, to make so much money from the tax- payer for equipment that was not used or unusable?
Lord Kamall (Con)
The noble Lord asks a detailed question, so I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I try to respond in some detail. If you look at the breakdown of the writedown, you will see that, first, about £4.6 billion was attributable to changes in global prices following the point of purchase in a highly inflated market—noble Lords will remember that even toilet rolls went up at one time. As the noble Lord rightly says, the £673 million was for stuff that had failed the quality testing or technical insurance. The £2.6 billion was for stock that will not be used for its intended purposes but can be repurposed. We are also looking at stock in excess of the current forecast requirements, which can be stockpiled, and we are also introducing a tender for testing to see whether the life of some of that stock can be extended.
Social Care
Debate between Lord Kamall and Lord Wood of Anfield(2 years, 5 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
On 7 September, we announced £5.4 billion of new funding for adult social care over the 2022 to 2025 period. We have also announced that this includes more than £3.6 billion to reform the adult social care charging system and to help local authorities better sustain their markets by moving towards paying providers a fair rate for care. It also includes more than £1.7 billion for much-needed wider system reform. Further details will be announced in a White Paper later this year.
Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)
My Lords, the Health Foundation has calculated that, over the next three years, the funding required just to meet current social care demand is bigger than the extra money going into social care from the levy. So this levy will not even start to address issues such as the need for better pay and conditions for social care staff, local government’s lack of resources, and the need for community care, personalisation, et cetera. Could the Minister explain how he expects the country to believe the Government’s plan that, after three years of operation, the NHS portion of the levy, which is currently the majority, will be cut and transferred to social care? Can he confirm that the plan is really to cut NHS funding in 2025 in the face of ever rising demands on its services?
Lord Kamall (Con)
The Government have always been clear that the share of the levy going towards the NHS to tackle the backlog was temporary and that, in the longer term, we would move to funding social care. As I am sure the noble Lord is aware, for decades, Governments have kicked the can down the road and have not tackled this difficult issue. The Government have been quite firm in committing money and have been learning, in our constant discussion with stakeholders, how best to reform the social care sector.