Covid-19: PPE Procurement Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Geraint Davies
Main Page: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)Department Debates - View all Geraint Davies's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(2 years ago)
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Neil O'Brien
I mentioned that due diligence was done on more than 19,000 companies—a huge number of companies and people got in touch to offer to help—but let us continue that conversation. I am happy to talk about the particular issue that the hon. Lady raised.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Welsh Labour Government received £874 million for PPE as its population-proportionate share, but spent only £300 million—about a third of the money given. That suggests, says Cardiff University, that the UK Government could have saved £8 billion, or £300 a household across the UK, had they used public authorities, health authorities and councils instead of private profiteering contractors known to Ministers. Will the Minister look carefully at the Welsh model and, in future, use the public sector rather than private sector cronies known to Ministers such as the former Health and Social Care Secretary, the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), who is out in the jungle making more money for himself?
Neil O'Brien
Inevitably, a huge amount of the PPE that is produced in the world is produced by private companies. There is no world in which we could avoid the use of private companies to supply PPE.