Protective Clothing: Procurement

(asked on 18th November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the National Audit Office report entitled Investigation into government procurement during the covid-19 pandemic, published 18 November 2020, what the names are of the 144 companies that were introduced by the private offices of Ministers and processed via the high priority lane for the procurement of personal protective equipment.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 8th December 2020

The Government issued a public call to action to support the increased requirements of personal protective equipment (PPE). This resulted in over 15,000 suppliers offering their help and support.

The cross-Government PPE team considered that leads referred by Government officials, Ministerial private offices, Parliamentarians, senior National Health Service staff and other health professionals were possibly the more credible and needed to be initially reviewed with more urgency. This was commonly referred to as a ‘priority’ or ‘VIP’ channel.

At the point of being prioritised these offers went into the same due diligence, technical assurance, closing or contract negotiation and contract award process as all the other offers. About one in ten suppliers were processed through this channel - 47 out of 493 - obtained contracts. We do not intend to publish the list of these suppliers as there may be associated commercial implications.

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