Covid-19: Award of Contracts

Michael Ellis Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)]

I am very grateful to be speaking in this Adjournment debate on covid-19 contracts and I congratulate the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) on his success in securing this debate.

As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, covid-19 has presented this country with one of the most unprecedented challenges that we have faced since world war two. It has been imperative for us all to work together and to do so closely throughout the pandemic. This Government recognise the importance both of the key role of the devolved Administrations, and of our working together as one United Kingdom. It is thanks to that close collaboration and co-ordination that we have been able, as a United Kingdom, to achieve enormous success in, for example, our vaccine roll-out programme, where we are leading the world, and I hope that he will recognise that.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned personal protective equipment. The reality of the matter is that, since 25 February 2020, we have secured the production of more than 16.5 billion items of PPE, the majority of which have either been delivered or are on their way and enable us to meet the future needs of health and social care workers. Since 9 April 2020, more than 5.4 billion items of PPE have been ordered through the e-portal. We have also established a safety stockpile of all covid-critical PPE, with a tremendous contribution from UK manufacturers, to ensure that we can continue to provide an uninterrupted supply to the frontline. We have done so despite the fact that pressure from almost every country in the world put enormous strains on supplies of PPE. Therefore, we are working extremely hard to ensure that resilience and sustainability is built into long-term planning for UK manufacturers. The PPE cell, as it is called, has now developed a UK-based supply chain for PPE, and that is a complete turnaround from the situation before covid. We have been building UK manufacturing capacity and we have been doing so by signing contracts with more than 30 British-based companies for the provision of 3.9 billion items of PPE.

[Neale Hanvey]

rose—

[Michael Ellis]

I will just make some progress, if I may.

There has been an enormous effort and an enormous success, despite considerable international pressure, in establishing those routes and chains and developing them to supply the vast quantities that have been required by this country. We have done that with the assistance of more than 30 UK-based companies, which should be thanked for their work and their efforts.

There is a high-priority lane for PPE, and the high-priority mailbox was set up at a time when this country and our citizens were in need of urgent help. Many suppliers and individuals were rightly passing on offers of support direct to local MPs, both Government and Opposition MPs, and passing on their suggestions to healthcare professionals, civil servants and anyone they knew. They were right to do so to both Labour and Conservative MPs across the House, because they were seeking to assist the national interest in what was at the time a national emergency. They were keen that the Government procurement effort should know what was available.

The mailbox at the time allowed MPs, Ministers and senior officials to direct those offers to a dedicated location. The high-priority lane was simply one way of helping us to identify credible opportunities for PPE procurement, so that frontline workers received the protection they needed as fast as possible. It was in the national interest, it was a good thing to do and people should be thanked for their help in that regard.

Ministers were not involved in the decision to establish the high-priority lane; it was an internal process, if hon. Members would like to know, led entirely by officials. In order to demonstrate our commitment to transparency, we said on 17 November that the Government would publish, and we did publish, details of the suppliers identified through the high-priority lane and those who referred them through that route.

[Neale Hanvey]

I reflect on the comments the Prime Minister made to me during Prime Minister’s questions on 18 March 2020, when I asked him whether the priority should be the prize of beating covid rather than patents and profits. Does the Minister not share my concern that there have been significant mark-ups on a range of products, from PPE to lateral flow devices, so that companies that prior to the pandemic were in deficit now enjoy enormous profits—in the multi-millions of pounds—for doing little more than purchasing and passing on products to the UK Government and trousering significant profits? Does that not disturb him?

[Michael Ellis]

I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of business as some sort of enemy of the people, which is what he is effectively saying. Profit is not a dirty word, except possibly to the extremists on the far left. The reality of the matter is that we have sought the support of UK companies and they have come good on that support. They have therefore assisted the British people and our national health service by supplying PPE when it has been needed, despite enormous international pressures and demands around the world for those supplies.

I am not going to get into any individual characterisation of any particular cases, because I do not have the facts that the hon. Gentleman contends available to me personally. As a general principle, however, we have sought assistance and we have received that assistance, and that has been in the national interest.

The hon. Gentleman mentions the National Audit Office report, for example. That report, “Investigation into government procurement during the COVID-19 pandemic”, which was published in November 2020, set out the facts relating to Government procurement during the covid-19 pandemic, covering the period up to 31 July. The report recognised that the Government needed to act with “extreme urgency” to procure large quantities of goods and services quickly, which of course is common sense, and

“frequently from suppliers it had not previously worked with”.

The NAO report that the hon. Gentleman mentions recognised that in a “highly competitive international market” we the UK had to deal with companies we had not previously worked with and we had to do so at speed, under considerable pressure. The NAO found “no evidence” of ministerial

“involvement in procurement decisions or contract management”,

so I hope he will read the report he has quoted.

I am conscious of the time, so I will make further progress. The hon. Gentleman talked about testing equipment. There is currently no shortage of lateral flow tests.

There is enough stock to meet demand across the range of distribution channels, but tests are made available via home delivery channels each day. If they are not available at a specific time, people are encouraged to revisit the site later as more become available. We are issuing millions of rapid tests per day via home delivery, with record numbers distributed in recent days. We must balance the demands on the delivery network carefully, as the hon. Gentleman will recognise, to ensure that PCR and lateral flow tests can be delivered to homes across the country. We have worked with Royal Mail, for example, to increase capacity for home delivery of testing kits to 900,000 a day in response to unprecedented demand, and to ensure that even more people can order PCR and lateral flow tests directly to their home. That is a monumental achievement, and the UK is leading the world in this area.

[Neale Hanvey]

That is not true.

[Michael Ellis]

I know that the hon. Gentleman wants to be critical, because he wants to be critical of the UK, but it is leading the world. One and a half million tests a day—we spent £37 billion on Test and Trace. We have increased deliveries by 100% from 120 million to 300 million in the month of December, and that is more than any other country in the world. We have tripled the supply for January and February from 100 million to 300 million a month, so the UK’s testing programme is the biggest in Europe, with over 400 million tests carried out to date—twice the number in France and more than four times the number in Germany. The split of the tests sent each day—PCR and lateral flow tests—varies according to demand for PCR tests.

[Neale Hanvey]

Will the Minister give way one more time?

[Michael Ellis]

I am conscious of the time. The hon. Gentleman had quite some time for his contribution, but I will give way to him a second time.

[Neale Hanvey]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again—he has been a great sport.

I have one short question about the volume of testing devices. Does he have any indication of what percentage of the test devices that he has touted as the greatest number in the world were manufactured here in the UK by domestic diagnostic companies?

[Michael Ellis]

In times of urgency, we wish to source from the most immediately available sources. I do not have the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, but no doubt it can be provided later in writing. It goes without saying that we would wish to do everything that we can to provide support, but also to deal expeditiously with urgent demand. As well as the rapid expansion in delivery capacity to people’s homes, the UK Health Security Agency has increased test availability at pharmacies and so on. We want to ensure that there is a reliable test supply over the coming weeks. That is the most important thing, and we are working to procure hundreds of millions more.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, what we have learned from covid-19 is how the UK Government can work strategically and at scale to save jobs and support communities across the UK. We are all on that side—that is what we want to do. I want to support people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and I am sure that he would want to support people in constituencies around this country, working alongside the devolved Administrations to keep every citizen safe. That is our priority, and we want to support people no matter where they live in the United Kingdom. No part of the UK could have tackled this crisis alone. The Government have provided £400 billion of direct support for the economy during the pandemic to date. The United Kingdom has delivered, and is continuing to deliver.

I would say in conclusion that I am grateful for the valuable points raised by the hon. Gentleman throughout his remarks, but the Government are taking decisive action to reform the public procurement rules to create a system that is simpler, more open, fairer and more competitive. We are working on that alongside the full inquiry into the covid-19 response, which will take place this year.

Question put and agreed to.