Justin Madders
Main Page: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)Department Debates - View all Justin Madders's debates with the Cabinet Office
(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Julia Lopez
I thank the hon. Lady for her concerns, and I wish to assure her that a link to the Conservative party was not one of the criteria that needed to be fulfilled when those PPE contracts were being undertaken.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab) [V]
The National Audit Office report on PPE procurement made it clear that there was a lack of transparency in the documentation relating to key procurement decisions. We now know about the routine use of private emails to conduct Government business, which raises the question of whether the NAO could not find all the documentation because it was hidden away in private email accounts. Can the Minister now give us an assurance that all relevant private emails were handed over to the NAO as part of its investigations? If she cannot give us that assurance, can she ensure that all those private emails will now be passed over to the NAO?
Julia Lopez
In relation to the challenges we faced in trying to transparently publish all the contracts, I have set out some of the reasons for them. It was partly because a team of 450 people had to be surged across Government, and they were all working on different IT systems. Going back and trying to look at all the documentation relating to PPE has been a real challenge, and those challenges have been acknowledged in the various court cases that have been brought. I wish to assure the hon. Gentleman with regard to the emails that, in so far as freedom of information requests are made, they will be looked at in the relevant way.