Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps her Department took with the Department for Health and Social Care in January 2020 to source personal protective equipment to help prepare for the effect of covid-19 on the UK.

Since the onset of the coronavirus crisis, the Department for International Trade (DIT) has been working closely with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to assist the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) in identifying sources for the personal protective equipment (PPE) that they needed. The combined DIT, FCO and DHSC efforts have resulted in new purchase orders from the DHSC for over 30.7 billion items of PPE being raised through new global sources, alongside existing British suppliers to the NHS.