Correction to PQ118520, PQ118521 and PQ118522

Edward Argar Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Written Statements

[The Minister for Health (Edward Argar)]

On 28 February 2022, the Department answered three parliamentary questions asked by Nick Smith MP. The single answer given to all three questions included an incorrect reference to a supplier of PPE.

The questions were:

“118520: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department paid £600 million to Unispace Global Ltd for the purchase of personal protective equipment in 2020.”

“118521: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether Unispace Global Ltd met its contractual obligations for providing adequate personal protective equipment under the contractual terms set by his Department in 2020. ”

“118522: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether any Government Department has taken steps to investigate why payments made to Unispace Global Ltd were not reported by that company in its financial accounts; and, if he will make a statement.”

The departmental answer was:

“…Unispace Global partially met its contractual obligations, supplying the National Health Service with £484 million items of PPE from April 2020 till December 2021. We are working with the company on a commercial resolution for the remainder of the contract... ”

However, all contracts between Unispace Global Ltd and the Department for Health and Social Care were novated to Unispace Health Products LLP in December 2020, which has since changed its name to Sante Global LLP. Accordingly, the departmental answer should have referred to Sante Global LLP rather than Unispace Ltd.

Through this written ministerial statement I am correcting this error, which arose as one of our internal record management systems had not been updated to reflect the change in name. This system has also been updated.

[HCWS128]