Covid-19 Update

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) [V]]

On 22 February, the Prime Minister told the House that the PPE contracts

“are there on the record for everybody to see”.—[Official Report, 22 February 2021; Vol. 689, c. 638.]

He also said that

“all the details are on the record”.—[Official Report, 22 February 2021; Vol. 689, c. 634.]

What the Prime Minister told Parliament was not true. A large number of contracts were neither there for everybody to see nor on the record, including a £23 million contract to Bunzl, which was not published until 8 March. The ministerial code states:

“It is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.”

So will the Prime Minister finally apologise to the House and the country for this misleading statement, and ensure that the Government’s procurement practices during the pandemic are in the scope of the covid inquiry?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I am sure that the hon. Lady means “inadvertently misleading”.

[The Prime Minister]

I am sure she does, Madam Deputy Speaker.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend, who is also a doctor, is completely right: necessity is the mother of invention. We have been driven by the pandemic to great, great feats of scientific genius, producing, as he rightly says, the mRNA vaccines at incredible speed—the AstraZeneca vaccine—and the pandemic has meant that the abilities of this country alone to cope have hugely increased. We are now capable of producing a vaccine through the fill and finish plants. We have the new Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre. We have invested in bioreactors across the country. We are much, much more resilient than we were, but we are also leading across the world in making sure that countries co-ordinate and work together on spotting zoonotic diseases earlier, with the research hubs, and making sure that we co-ordinate data and share data much earlier. We are also making sure that there are not the barriers that have, sadly, sprung up between countries to the sharing of supplies and vaccines, so that we have secure supply chains around the world. So what the UK is doing is not only spending £548 million on COVAX, investing in vaccines around the world—I think that the UK has so far given 40 million vaccine doses to 117 countries—but working on a global response to pandemics. That will be one of the things we will do together at the G7, and it is supported by all the partner countries. So that is what we will be doing.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his statement. I am suspending the House for three minutes, in order to make necessary arrangements for the next business.