Covid-19: Contracts and Public Inquiry

Christian Wakeford Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I am pleased that the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) took us back to the position pertaining to March last year, because that is a very important piece of context for this whole debate. It informs the decisions we took then: what we knew about the likely course of the pandemic and how much, in fact, we now know was probably guesswork. I will return to that, because I think it is an important piece of context for the decisions that this House took then and the accountability we are now entitled to demand of Government for the exercise of the powers that this House gave them at that time. Effectively, we gave them the powers on trust.

My right hon. and hon. Friends will support the motion in a Division; however, by way of clarification, we will do so because of the words that SNP Members have put in it, not necessarily because of many of the arguments that they have advanced in support of it. The inquiry requires to be early. There is no real justification for a delay until the spring of next year. The hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) spoke about the social contract. As I said to him at the time, I very much share his analysis. In fact, it is because of that social contract, which essentially comes down to the relationship between the citizen and the state, that an early and thorough, but not overly lengthy, inquiry is absolutely necessary.

To go back to the spirit of March 2020, there was a genuine sense of national endeavour. It was a rare moment in public life, because there was a sense that—in that much misused and overused phrase—we were “all in this together”. It pains me to say that many of the things that we have seen and heard, and that we have discussed today, have done so much to damage and diminish that sense of national endeavour. The earliest possible clarity and resolution of these things—to pick up the words of the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire, the earliest opportunity to decide what is hyperbole and what is hard fact—matters for our politics as a whole.

I was here when the House voted to go to war in Iraq. I believed then, and have believed since, that that was a major strategic error in the United Kingdom’s foreign policy. That was in 2003. It took until 2016 for us to get the Chilcot inquiry report—all 12 volumes and executive summary of it. I do not think that it is hyperbole to say that by the time the report came the moment had somewhat passed. Personally, I still use that report—six volumes act as a laptop stand, and the other six ensure that the door will not blow shut if I open the window. That, I am afraid, is the danger that faces us, and it is why we have to have an early start to the inquiry. If the need for restrictions has passed, as the Prime Minister and so many of his Back Benchers have told us, surely the time has come for us to start that work.

I am sympathetic to the views of those who act as scientific and medical advisers, but the inquiry, when it comes, will have to deal with so much more than just the public health aspects. We need a bit of sympathetic and strategic planning of the time to be taken. The matter that we are talking about today—covid contracts—is exactly the sort of thing that could be dealt with in the early stages of the inquiry, which is why we should be able to start it.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

On the comments that the right hon. Gentleman makes about some of the aspects that could be considered now, yes, we are coming towards the end of the pandemic, but we are still in it. Considering that some fiscal measures will go on until at least September, does he not agree that we should wait until we can review the pandemic as a whole and then make meaningful conclusions, as opposed to trying to make quick ones now? Surely we do it right or we do it quickly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me earlier than expected.

First, I pay special tribute to frontline workers who have worked tirelessly at the forefront of fighting this deadly virus. Our nation is indebted to all those doctors, nurses and other health workers who rose above the limits of their duty, saved lives and ensured the availability of essential services. However, I want to put on the record my thanks to one particular nurse who has never been mentioned in this place—my identical twin brother. He has been on a covid ward for the duration of this pandemic and has been unable to have a vaccine because he is allergic to them. He really has been at the forefront of this pandemic; I am proud of everything that he has done, and I cannot say so enough. People have said to me a number of times, “You have an identical twin. Who is the good one and who is the evil one?” I am a Conservative MP and he is a nurse, so I will let everyone else do the math of that one.

The public have gone above and beyond during this pandemic—whether it be brewers and distilleries making vital hand sanitisers, chemical works such as ITAC, which I visited last year, fundamentally changing its own production methods to make hand sanitisers, or firms such as Vitafoam in Heywood and Middleton, which has gone from making beds to making face masks. Everyone has fundamentally changed the way that they work, live and, in some cases, even eat, but we are all getting to the point where we are sick of Zoom and Teams. Thankfully, the way that we socialise is coming back to the forefront and we are now able to have a cautious hug, a cautious handshake and, heaven forbid, a pint over the football tonight—and it is coming home.

At the onset of the crisis, against a backdrop of unprecedented global demand, there was a real fear that we would run out of vital equipment. That is why we acted quickly to secure the medical equipment and the PPE needed for our frontline workers, securing more than 22,000 additional ventilators and delivering over 11.7 billion items of PPE to frontline workers. We have moved heaven and earth, as any responsible Government would do, to keep people safe, and we make no apology for acting at pace in securing the lifesaving equipment needed to save lives.

In addition, this Government have secured a portfolio of 507 million doses of the eight most promising vaccines. We are not only vaccinating this country but making sure that we donate 100 million vaccines to the most needy across the globe, and I am immensely proud of that. The UK has stormed ahead with its vaccination programme, which is why we are able to unlock and why, hopefully, we are able to go back to freedom. Despite that, the SNP wanted the UK to join the EU’s vaccines scheme, with the SNP’s Mental Wellbeing and Social Care Minister, Kevin Stewart, slamming our decision to opt out of it, calling it “lunacy” and “irresponsible”. We need only look to our neighbours on the continent to see that we were right. By contrast, the latest figures show that, as a result of our independent vaccine programme, 86% of people in the UK have received their first dose of a vaccine and 64% are fully vaccinated, having received their second dose.

We have one of the best testing regimes in the world, with the capacity to deliver over 1 million tests a day. Instead of the Opposition attacking our efforts, our achievements should be celebrated as an example of what we can do as a truly United Kingdom.

The Opposition’s claims about conflicts of interest in PPE contracts have been thrown out by multiple independent investigations, which have failed to find any conflicts of interest whatsoever in PPE procurement by Ministers. Indeed, the deputy chief medical officer said that an inquiry would be an unnecessary “extra burden” that would distract from the vaccine roll-out.

The SNP Government themselves decided to award over £500 million of contracts without competition, so perhaps the SNP should be keeping their own house in order rather than attacking our Government.

Transparency is fundamental to trust, and I will say that we have not got everything right. If I were to say otherwise, I would be lying—not just inadvertently misleading the House—which is why a fully independent public inquiry, starting next spring, will ensure the pandemic response is robustly examined. It will show where we got things right and where, unfortunately, we got things wrong, and we have got some things wrong during this pandemic because we are human. Hindsight is 20/20 and, in an unprecedented pandemic, people make the decisions they think are right at the time, and they can only be judged afterwards.

Furthermore, we have strengthened transparency around the awarding of Government contracts by bringing in new rules on Government procurement, so we can make sure that Government contracts are fully transparent and offer true value for money. We will also be publishing more information about Government contracts, so all details on the procurement process are in the public domain.

The Opposition have used every opportunity throughout the pandemic to play politics, from accusing Kate Bingham of cronyism to describing test and trace as money wasted. Labour and the SNP are more interested in sniping from the sidelines, but this Conservative Government have delivered for the people of this country. That is why we are able to reopen the economy and the country, and it is why we are hopefully moving forward.

[Several hon. Members rose—]