Government Contracts: Randox Laboratories

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

At the time of the award of the original contract in March 2020, almost no UK supply was available and Randox was able to provide an end-to-end testing service. The department then engaged with a number of suppliers in its effort rapidly to build from scratch the largest testing industry in UK history. That has played an important role in stopping the spread of Covid-19 and saving lives. The service that Randox provided was a very important part of that.

A number of Randox home testing kits were recalled in the summer of 2020 after tests found that swabs were not sterilised. A Public Health England investigation did not find any instances of swabs causing ill health. Randox agreed to provide new Covid-19 self-test kits. The contract was necessary to meet the increase in testing needed. An independent assessment in June 2020 had placed Randox ahead of other laboratories, and Randox was meeting its delivery targets by September 2020. Without Randox, we would not have been able to meet the volume of testing needed over the winter period.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that Randox Laboratories is a major employer in a constituency that I represented for 10 years in the other House. It cannot be challenged that Randox Laboratories has been globally recognised in the diagnostics industry over many years. Therefore, can the Minister place on record the Government’s appreciation for firms such as Randox that rose to the health emergency and exercised their best efforts to achieve our unprecedented national effort?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for reminding us of the importance of all the companies that supplied equipment or scaled up at pace or were able to meet the initial requirements. It was a time of panic; thousands were dying, and we did not have equipment. This was a time before the vaccine. The department and its officials tried to speak to as many people as possible around the world to find out what was available, what could be done and what the timescales were. Clearly, as the noble Lord said, Randox played an important role in meeting the testing requirements initially.