Nick Smith
Main Page: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney)Department Debates - View all Nick Smith's debates with the HM Treasury
(1 year, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Nick Smith
Some £7.9 billion was wasted on useless and overpriced personal protective equipment; meanwhile, opportunists who saw the Tories coming are now profiteering on the back of the public purse. Does the Minister regret that this money was not spent wisely? Nearly £8 billion could buy us 20 new hospitals.
John Glen
Our priority was clear throughout the covid crisis, and that was to get PPE to the frontline as quickly as possible. Due diligence was carried out on all companies that were referred to the Department. Despite all those steps being taken, some instances of fraud did occur with unscrupulous suppliers taking advantage of the situation. This Government take that fraud seriously, and the Department of Health and Social Care is exploring every available option to bring those who commit fraud to account. We have also made a number of other interventions, including investment in the taxpayer protection taskforce to normalise higher compliance activity in HMRC, alongside other measures to deal with fraud elsewhere in some of the emergency schemes that we set up to help this economy and this country get through covid.