Covid Contracts: Judicial Review Debate

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Department: Department of Health and Social Care

Covid Contracts: Judicial Review

Liz Twist Excerpts
Wednesday 24th February 2021

(3 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Edward Argar Portrait Edward Argar
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I suspect I can do no better than to quote the judgment, which stated that in respect of regulation 50 the Government “acted unlawfully”, but my hon. Friend is right to highlight the fact that—again, as the judgment set out—the Secretary of State is almost at complete compliance, which is exactly what the Government are committed to.

Liz Twist Portrait Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab) [V]
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The Government claim that this is just a case of a few PPE contracts being published a couple of weeks late, but in fact we know that hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of contracts also went to management consultants. Will the Minister confirm whether all the contracts for which the publishing deadline was missed, from the start of the pandemic until now, were in fact for PPE, or did they also include contracts that have gone to private consultants? Will he explain why those contracts were not published on time?

Edward Argar Portrait Edward Argar
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My understanding is that this data relates to all contracts by the Department. If I am inaccurate in that, I will of course correct the record for the House, but my understanding is that this data refers to all contracts by the Department itself.