Personal Protective Equipment: Waste

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Baroness will recognise that I was not in post at the time, but I have been advised by officials in the department that they put feelers out to as many people as possible. Government officials, Members of the House of Lords and politicians from all parties were suggesting companies, and that was put through a process whereby the department made an assessment of whether it was able to award contracts.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, the National Audit Office found that the department is currently spending approximately £7 million a month on storing 3.9 billion PPE items that it does not now need. That is the equivalent of employing 2,400 extra nurses a year. Why are Ministers allowing this waste of taxpayers’ money to continue?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that we are paying storage costs, and over the last few months there has been a reduction in storage and the Government have been looking at more cost-effective ways. However, the overall strategy—and why we have two lead waste providers looking at the issue—is to ask how we can sell, donate, repurpose or recycle wherever we can. For equipment where complex chains of polymers cannot be broken down—chemists would understand this better—we are looking at how we can dispose of it in the most environmentally friendly way.