Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether it is Government policy to publish the (a) number and (b) type of personal protective equipment items procured through Government contracts.

The Government is committed to meeting the legal obligations and its own transparency guidelines in publishing Contract Award Notices (CANs) and the associated contracts for all the contracts it has entered into for the procurement of personal protective equipment in response to COVID-19.

To date, 89% of the CANs have now been published and over 50% of the contracts can be found on Contracts Finder at the following link:

https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/

Delays in publishing this information have been due to the resources available within the Department given the vast increase in the volume of contracts that have had to be processed.