Exercise Cygnus

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts
Tuesday 9th June 2020

(4 years, 5 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Fowler Portrait The Lord Speaker
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Lord Naseby. No?

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Portrait Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]
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My Lords, after operation Cygnus were estimates of the requirements for PPE checked against the 2006 influenza pandemic stockpile, given that this store was found to contain no gowns or visors, and 21 million protective FFP3 masks were missing when the store was opened for the current pandemic?

Lord Bethell Portrait Lord Bethell [V]
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The noble Baroness is right—if I understand her correctly—that the needs of PPE for a flu pandemic were quite different from those for Covid. It is also true that the planning did not anticipate a breakdown in global trade and a failure of the business-as-usual supply of PPE. No one could have imagined that flights would be grounded and factories shut and that the global supply chains for these key and vital products would have ground to a halt in the way that they did.