Covid Contracts: Judicial Review

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We did take every step we could to ensure that trusts had the PPE they needed. The NAO report said:

“The NHS provider organisations we spoke to told us that, while they were concerned about the low stocks of PPE, they were always able to get what they needed in time.”

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I will touch on that point first. Paragraph 18 of the summary says exactly what the Minister said, but it then goes on to say, however, that frontline workers reported shortages of PPE. It does not behove him well to come to this House clearly having had Back Benchers briefed about a partial element of the National Audit Office’s report that is inaccurate when taken in the round. He needs to deal with that point.

My bigger point is on the transparency of the contracts. The Minister has talked breathlessly about the urgency at the early stage of the pandemic. Let us be clear: by the end of the summer and the autumn, many of the contracts had still not been published. The civil service is usually good at record-keeping and transparency, but on this occasion there was a failure. He should have the guts to come to the House, apologise, and promise it will not happen again. More transparency, not less, is vital when billions of pounds are being spent, in haste in a pandemic.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who knows this issue exceptionally well and has investigated it over a number of months. Of course, as always, I listen to what she says carefully and with considerable respect. On her first point, she is right to say that the NAO reported that some frontline workers had told it that they had experienced shortages. We are reflecting what we were told by our trusts and by those running the delivery of PPE in those trusts, and what the NAO was told by them. She alluded to the key point—as I believe I said in response to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas)—that we did not run out of PPE nationally, but there were challenges, which I acknowledged and do acknowledge, at some individual trusts and in some localities. That is why we worked at pace to make sure that they got what they needed and did not run out of PPE. That is exactly why officials in the Department were working so hard and pulling out all the stops to make sure we ordered more PPE and got more of it delivered.

The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch made a broader point about transparency, and of course it is a vital point. I believe it was the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) who highlighted trust. Trust is always the currency of politics; it is always the one thing that everyone requires, in government and in this House. It is important that that is fostered by as much transparency as possible. The judgment found that in a number of cases the Government did not meet the 30-day deadline. The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch asks for an assurance now, and I can give her the assurance that the Government are doing everything they can to ensure that regulation 50 is complied with, and complied with fully.