Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what process was used to approve emergency contracts for covid-19 testing; and whether there was a fast track by which some offers were prioritised.

Authorities are allowed to procure goods, services and works with extreme urgency in exceptional circumstances using regulation 32(2)(c) under the Public Contract Regulations 2015. These include a direct award due to extreme urgency or the absence of competition. Under the regulation contracting authorities may enter into contracts without competing or advertising the requirement.

We use Regulation 32 only where there is no alternative. All proposed business cases and contract awards are triaged by the NHS Test and Trace approvals secretariat and routed to appropriate delegated authorities or boards for review depending on value and nature of the required investment.