Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Simon Clarke and Bill Esterson(3 years ago)
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Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Florence Roby Ltd was turned down when it bid for Government contracts for personal protective equipment last year, despite a 50-year track record of high-quality production. It was not asking for special favours; all it wanted was a fair chance of winning Government contracts. Some £3.5 billion was handed out to friends and donors of the Conservative party through a VIP lane. That is in stark contrast to the experience of Florence Roby Ltd. When will good people such as my constituents get access not to a VIP lane, but to a level playing field?
Mr Simon Clarke
We worked at speed to secure the PPE needed to protect our frontline workers, and we supplied over 58,000 different healthcare settings. We now have a four-month stockpile of all critical PPE to make sure that the NHS can continue to be protected. All these bids are assessed in line with standard guidance to make sure that there is total equity in that process. Any suggestion to the contrary is fundamentally misleading.
No-deal Brexit: Short Positions against the Pound
Debate between Simon Clarke and Bill Esterson(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
A number of hedge funds expect to benefit as a result of their short positions on a number of sectors in the economy, including construction and shopping centres. It cannot be right that as a deliberate result of Government policy those hedge funds are going to cash in at the expense not only of those sectors but of the constituents of every single Member of this House.
Mr Clarke
Government policy is to leave the European Union with a deal, if at all possible, and that remains our central case. The hon. Gentleman’s question in many ways summarises the past few minutes, in so far as it does not get to the substantive point, which is that the only reason we are at risk of a no-deal exit is that we have not managed to persuade the Opposition that they should get behind our attempts to secure a better deal rather than seek constantly to undermine them.