Government Contracts: Randox Laboratories

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Maggie Throup]

Once again, I make no apologies for the Department working to look at every opportunity to make sure that we had the right mechanisms in place to keep our country safe. As I said earlier, Randox was a recognised company in the diagnostic industry. The hon. Gentleman talks about how he perceives the Department working. The fact is that we have released all the documents. As I said earlier, the 11,000 documents were looked at to identify what was relevant. We have been very open in putting that information in the House of Commons Library and responding to the Humble Address.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

The documents seem to show that there was a meeting with the former Member for North Shropshire and the former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in the Division Lobby. Will the Minister respond to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds)? Did that meeting take place?

[Maggie Throup]

The evidence has been put in the Library and the information is there. I want to make it clear that my Department went through as much evidence as it could. As I said earlier, we were at the start of a pandemic; nobody had ever seen anything like it before. I make no apologies for making sure that we had everything in place to keep the country safe.