Covid-19: Contracts and Public Inquiry

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)]

I thank all Members who have spoken in the debate and I associate myself with the remarks and the tributes that have been paid to all those who have lost their lives, and the incredible work that so many have done to help in the pandemic. I was particularly moved by the story of the twin brother of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford). My twin brother started the pandemic as cabin crew for Virgin Atlantic, and in fact still works for it, but he volunteered at the Nightingale Hospital London and then retrained as a phlebotomist to help with the blood plasma work and antibody work for the NHS. I am incredibly proud of him, of all my constituents and of everyone across the country who has done such an amazing job in the pandemic.

At the heart of all the speeches have been core questions of those in public life—that we should take responsibility, fulfil our duty and act in the public interest. This debate is the latest in a long line of debates and urgent questions on this topic. The Minister for Prevention, Public Health and Primary Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), set out yet again the facts and figures, but I remind the House that we are talking about goods and services that included 32 billion items of personal protective equipment and 15,000 ventilators with enormous numbers of component parts. It was a massive and highly complex procurement at a time when the rest of the world was doing the same. Against that backdrop, less than 1% of that PPE was not fit for purpose. I pay tribute to all those who made that happen.

We were focused on getting the right spec in the right volumes to the right people in the right timeframe. We followed up thousands of offers of help and the same processes were applied to all expressions of interest. Although SNP Members have collective amnesia, they were on the daily calls and fully know the nature of the hotlines that we set up. All this information is in the public domain and subject to scrutiny. Procurement rules were not suspended. The efforts made and the motivation behind them were recognised by many public bodies that hold us to account. They were recognised by the National Audit Office in its November report and even in the judgment in respect of Public First. Are there lessons that could be learned? Yes. Could we have been better prepared? Yes. Were we late with our paperwork? Yes—but as a procurement officer at the Cabinet Office said, “I’d rather be late with my paperwork than a nurse go without PPE.”

We have been subject to an enormous amount of scrutiny: two PACAC reports; 15 Public Accounts Committee reports; one Treasury report; one report from the independent auditor; three Boardman reports; one review from the Committee on Standards in Public Life; one review from the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards; one review from the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards; two reports from the Information Commissioner’s Office; and one joint inquiry from the Health and Social Care Committee and the Science and Technology Committee. All those, as well as the inquiry that the Prime Minister has announced. We are also accountable before the law; it is ironic that I cannot talk about many of the contracts people would be interested in because they are subject to legal proceedings.

I always take pleasure in taking part in SNP debates; I have done a few and am beginning to notice a pattern. I have been called here previously to defend the UK’s position on jobs, while the SNP has dismissed the 545,000 Scottish jobs that are reliant on Scotland’s being part of the UK; I have been called here to discuss the importance of hypothetical EU funding mechanisms, while the SNP dismisses the very real United Kingdom dividend to the taxpayers of Scotland of £2,000 per person; and in another debate the SNP sought to be the champions of democracy while they ignored the result of two referendums. Although it might be a surprise to some that, in a week when we have had more revelations about the Scottish Government’s own lack of financial propriety and literacy, the SNP has called a debate on such schemes, it is not a surprise to me: I think it shows admirable consistency, as well as a complete lack of self-awareness with a large helping of assumed piety.

In addition to the many things we have done in government to improve transparency and procurement, let me tell the SNP and the House what we have not done. We did not hire to run our testing service, at the cost of £10 million, a firm that promptly furloughed its staff; the SNP did. We did not ignore firms that offered PPE to NHS Scotland; the SNP did. We did not provide guarantees to a company to the tune of £5 million per job to be secured—yes, £5 million per job—and then fail to secure those jobs; the SNP did. We did not secure loans without due diligence; the SNP did. Our National Audit Office did not say that we had no framework for working with private companies and, indeed, needed urgently to establish one; Audit Scotland did say that of the Scottish Government. We are not having to face replacing lost public funds from capital budgets—money earmarked to build schools and hospitals; the SNP is.

We did not ignore recommendations made by our auditing body, unlike the SNP, which has been criticised for ignoring Audit Scotland’s reports for the past three years; and we did not ignore inward investors who wanted to put their own money into Scotland and instead give preference to another firm that could do so only with public funds, as the media report this week.

If SNP Members want to start to gain some credibility on these matters, I suggest two things. First, they should implement the recommendations of their own scrutiny bodies and place information on deals, guarantees and dealings with private companies—including in respect of the Gupta Family Group—in the public domain.

Secondly, I want SNP Members to think about the context in which we are having this debate. This week, we learned that Scotland contains six of the 10 places with the highest infection rates in Europe. On average, Scotland’s schoolchildren have missed 119 days of schooling in this pandemic, and those from deprived backgrounds even more so. A massive 216,000 operations have not taken place in NHS Scotland. We have a huge catch-up job to do, and we must ensure that we can keep a vaccine programme on track.

We all face these issues and challenges, and we will meet them better if we meet them together. For our part, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will continue to engage with Scottish colleagues. Our four-nation NHS will continue to work together, as will our chief medical officers. My fellow Ministers and I—all comprehensive school educated, by the way—will come to this House to be held to account, and we will continue to reject the distracting, delusional and divisive debate from the SNP. We will do the responsible thing. We know our duty to the Scottish people, and we will always be guided by what is in their interest. I hope that, one day, the SNP will do the same.