Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. Let me take this opportunity once again to thank everyone who has been working in the NHS, especially for all that they have done during the pandemic. We are continuing to invest in the workforce through our 50,000-person expansion in the nurse programme, and we already have 44,000 more full-time employees in healthcare settings than we had this time last year, including 4,600 more doctors and 11,100 more nurses.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

The lack of capacity in accident and emergency departments and other healthcare services is a major contributor to the ongoing ambulance waiting time crisis in my constituency. Will the Secretary of State meet me and representatives of the West Midlands ambulance service—as I have repeatedly asked him to do—to help to resolve the crisis?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady is right to raise this matter. As she will know, owing to the pressures of the pandemic we have seen significant challenges for ambulance services throughout the country. Just a few days ago I met the head of the West Midlands ambulance service to discuss some of the issues, and also how the extra funding that we provided over the winter—some £55 million of support for ambulance services—is helping.

Covid-19: Purchasing Effort

Helen Morgan Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about speed and the context in which we were operating. I have to say all contracts were assessed through an eight-stage process undertaken by neutral civil servants. As the National Audit Office found, Ministers were not involved in the award of contracts.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

As a chartered accountant, I am au fait with the concept of an accounting write down and the scale of this one really does indicate reckless waste. I am sure that, in my constituency of North Shropshire, the £9.7 billion carelessly wasted could have been put to better use. It could have been used to tackle the extremely high ambulance waiting times, to help the local accident and emergency tackle the huge challenges it faces in getting patients through, or to deal with the £50 million black hole that social care in Shropshire is facing in two years’ time. Across the country, the story is very much the same. Local health services are struggling to find the money to deal with those issues. I am sure Members across the House know those issues all too well. That is why £9.7 billion wasted on PPE is so shocking. What are the Government doing to allocate resources to sufficiently recover that money?

[Edward Argar]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her place. I do not think I have had the opportunity to respond to a question or a speech from her previously, so I congratulate her, slightly belatedly, on her election and welcome her to this place. I will just correct one thing. She mentioned £9.7 billion. The sum involved is actually £8.7 billion.

To the hon. Lady’s point, first, it is not wasted. As I made clear, it purchased PPE. There is a small amount in these accounts which has been made clear. The shadow Secretary of State said that it was snuck out. If I recall, I tabled a written ministerial statement to draw attention to these issues to be open and transparent with the House, as I always endeavour to be. We did whatever was needed at the time, in the context of the highly inflated pricing in the midst of a global pandemic.

More broadly, the hon. Lady touched on NHS funding and pressures. I appreciate that she was not a Member of this House at the time, but this Government have put in record funding for our NHS. One of the first Acts after the 2019 election enshrined in law a £33.9 billion increase by 2023-24, and we are also putting in place the health and care levy to both assist our NHS and provide that sustainable footing for social care in the future. I acknowledge entirely that she was not a Member of this House, so it would be wrong to draw any inference as to how she may have voted, but I want to put that record investment on the record.

I also gently say that the Liberals’ stance on this issue shows, even by their standards, a degree of political contortion and a stretching of credibility. I think I am the only Member who has been a Health Minister throughout this pandemic, and I recall them desperately calling in 2020 for whatever it took to get and buy more PPE to protect the frontline. I agreed with that stance, but now they are suggesting that the Government got it wrong by prioritising whatever it took to get the PPE that the frontline needed.