Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what information he holds on the number of occurrences civil servants in his Department raised concerns regarding the price paid for personal protective equipment from February 2020 to August 2020; and if he will make a statement.

Suppliers’ offers were taken through a number of review stages by the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) team made up of civil servants. At various stages of the review process offers were declined as a result of prices being too high. HM Treasury put in place measures with which the Department of Health and Social Care had to comply in order to protect the taxpayer from mispricing. Measures included comparing the latest spot prices for each offer against market prices and benchmarking prices to make sure the Government was not overpaying.