Covid-19: Contracts and Public Inquiry

Peter Gibson Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con) [V]]

I am pleased to be called to speak in today’s debate about the steps that the Government have been taking in the last 16 months to procure lifesaving equipment and PPE for our incredible frontline staff across the country. This debate is nothing more than another attempt by the SNP to trot out its same old line seeking to smear the Government, pursue its separatist agenda and obscure attention from being focused on its own failures.

In Scotland, the SNP-led Government have been using the same procurement process for protective equipment but have failed to launch their own inquiry into the Scottish Government’s handling of the pandemic. Measures that this Government have taken have undoubtedly sped up Whitehall bureaucracy while operating without the need to break, suspend or change pre-existing legislation on contract awards and procurement.

It is testament to the speed at which the Government acted and delivered PPE that even while the virus was raging and there was a global PPE shortage, every single recommendation for the procurement of PPE went through an independent eight-stage process verified by independent civil servants. That approach has meant that the UK Government have been able to procure more than 22,000 extra ventilators, 11 billion items of personal protective equipment in England and 32 billion items for the whole of the Union, protecting those workers on the frontlines of both the NHS and social care. It is therefore no wonder that the approach taken to procurement by the UK Government has been used across the world. Japan, New Zealand and Finland have used similar approaches, while the devolved Administrations in Holyrood, Cardiff and Belfast use the same techniques and purposes

I welcome the fact that the Government have been open and transparent with their procurement process, with the independent National Audit Office acknowledging the Government’s exceptional work while ensuring that Ministers were not involved in procurement processes and had “properly declared their interests”. Meanwhile, the Scottish audit found that the SNP had failed to prepare for the pandemic and was paying tens of millions more than normal for its PPE supplies.

Today’s debate is nothing less than a poorly thought out move by the SNP to create more soundbites by failing to address its poor handling of the pandemic. Far from intending to help save lives and protect the most vulnerable, the SNP is seeking to distract attention from a disproportionate rise in cases and deaths in Scotland and its opposition to a Scottish inquiry into the handling of the pandemic.

This Conservative Government, thank goodness, are getting on with the fastest roll-out of the vaccine that has been seen across Europe while laying the groundwork for their own in-depth, independent inquiry in spring 2022, delivering for our whole United Kingdom.