Emergency Covid Contracts Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Cabinet Office

Emergency Covid Contracts

Martyn Day Excerpts
Tuesday 29th June 2021

(2 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts

Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Julia Lopez Portrait Julia Lopez
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

I thank my hon. Friend for his question about the Loch Ness monster whose existence I can neither confirm nor deny. He is right to highlight the fantastic ways in which our Union has worked together during the pandemic, whether that be on vaccine procurement, on the schemes that have been run out by the Treasury, or on some of the testing capacity that we have provided. We should not overlook the fantastic Union story that we have seen during this pandemic.

Martyn Day Portrait Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) [V]
- Parliament Live - Hansard - -

It is absolutely gobsmacking that, in the middle of a pandemic, Tory Ministers secretly redirected funds from an emergency covid contract to carry out political polling to benefit the Conservative party and its Unionist cause. Following the humiliation of the High Court case, will the Minister now commit to a full public inquiry into this gross misuse of public money? Does she take any responsibility for this failure and will she apologise for it?

Julia Lopez Portrait Julia Lopez
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

As I have set out on numerous occasions this afternoon, that was not political campaigning; it was important work that was being undertaken as part of our response to the pandemic.