Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the (a) total number of outstanding personal protective equipment orders that have not been fulfilled and (b) the cost to the public purse of any unfulfilled orders in the latest period for which figures are available.

Over 30 billion items of personal protective equipment (PPE) have been ordered overall from United Kingdom-based manufacturers and international partners to provide a continuous supply in the coming months. We have a robust process which ensures that orders are of high quality standard, meet commercial due diligence and checked for risk and fraud. All contracts are monitored for the delivery and safe receipt of the PPE and any compliance issues are followed up, the timings of which will vary according to when the contract was let.

All contracts have clauses in them that allow the Department to seek redress if the company supplies faulty products or misses delivery dates.