Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish a list of the (a) Chinese and (b) Indian companies selling medical (i) surgical gowns, (ii) masks and (iii) other personal protection equipment that her Department has visited to source such supplies for the UK during the covid-19 outbreak; and if he will make a statement.

A cross-Government personal protective equipment (PPE) sourcing unit, staffed by over 400 people, is securing new supply lines from across the world and has published rigorous standards against which purchases will be made. Department for International Development and Foreign and Commonwealth Office teams around the world are seeking new supplies, lobbying governments to lift export restrictions and getting crucial deliveries back to the United Kingdom.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in particular the embassy in Beijing, have supported us in relation to procurement activity in China. However, we do not hold records centrally of visits made by local Department for International Development or Foreign and Commonwealth Office official to individual suppliers of PPE in either China or India.