Government PPE Contracts

Neale Hanvey Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree. This was a global pandemic, yet it is the UK Government who are constantly criticised about these contracts and the way in which they were doled out and given. All the motion today asks for is transparency. What have they got to hide?

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way; she is making a powerful speech. Today has been a really important day, because we have met members of the Fire Brigades Union from across the country who have come down to stand up for a decent salary. That is all we are asking for. What this debate illustrates is that the Government can find billions of pounds to hand over in a crisis to well-connected supporters. If the allegations about the Member from the other place are true, enough money from that alleged dividend would have settled the firefighters’ settlement in Scotland in totality—one person against every firefighter. Will the right hon. Lady confirm that an incoming Labour Government will investigate this matter thoroughly and transparently, and hold anyone who has bent the rules—however they have done so—to justice?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the hon. Member for his point, and he is absolutely right. The Fire Brigades Union members were in Parliament and outside it today. They are frustrated, like many others who have been told that there is not money to give them a pay rise and that, actually, they are going to get a real-terms pay cut. But at the same time, billions of pounds has been wasted. As I said in my opening remarks, £770,000 a day has gone on storing this equipment. It is not acceptable to most people and most members of the public.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Will Quince)]

I am grateful for this opportunity to come to the House to talk about our vital national efforts on personal protective equipment. Colleagues must cast their minds back to where we were three years ago as we stood on the precipice of a global health emergency, the likes of which had not been seen for over a century. SARS-CoV-2 was not even called covid-19 at that point, and little was known about its impact and transmission. In a matter of a few short weeks, this novel coronavirus pushed global health systems and global PPE supply chains to near breaking point, yet here at home, from a standing start, we initiated work on one of the toughest logistical challenges ever undertaken in peacetime: the provision of PPE for frontline colleagues in health and social care.

[Neale Hanvey]

At the beginning of the pandemic in one of my first Prime Minister’s questions, I asked the then Prime Minister if he would ensure that profiteering would have no place in this Government’s response to the covid pandemic. Now, when we fast-forward to all these years later, that seems to have been at the very heart of it. The British people were told that this Government were helping them. British industry was told that it was going to be supported. I have persisted in my questions about how the domestic diagnostic industry has been promised work by this Government, yet it is being charged for doing the right thing. Will the Minister apologise—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.