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 total value of personal protective equipment that was procured during the covid-19 outbreak but expired before use.

There are approximately 303 million items of personal protective equipment which have passed their estimated expiry date at a total purchase cost of £299 million.

However, in many cases recorded expiry dates refer to the original documentation or assumed life of the product when it was delivered. We are currently exploring whether these expiry dates can be extended to allow the products to be used.