Covid Contracts: Judicial Review Debate
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Scott Benton
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Covid Contracts: Judicial Review
Scott Benton Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Edward Argar
I would rebut any suggestion that there is any corruption taking root, to use the hon. Gentleman’s words. Members of this House have the ability to ask questions and the NAO has the ability to ask questions. The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) will, I suspect, ask me a question in a moment, but she also has the ability to ask questions in the Public Accounts Committee, which she chairs, which, I believe, took evidence for three and a half hours in December from various senior officials in the Department. I am aware of the hon. Gentleman’s Bill, which I am sure the Government will look at in the usual way.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con) [V]
At the start of this pandemic the British people rightly expected the Government to leave no stone unturned in securing the vital supplies of PPE that were needed to fight the pandemic. Does the Minister agree that the findings from the National Audit Office make it clear that while we were in the grip of the global shortage of PPE, no health trust ran out of supplies at any point, and that that was thanks to the contracts that the Government managed to secure?
Edward Argar
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We did take every step we could to ensure that trusts had the PPE they needed. The NAO report said:
“The NHS provider organisations we spoke to told us that, while they were concerned about the low stocks of PPE, they were always able to get what they needed in time.”