Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on the adequacy of personal protective equipment procured under emergency regulations.
Answered by Jacob Rees-Mogg
The Department for Health and Social Care has processes in place to review the quality of all PPE the Government has purchased and these processes determine whether products are suitable to be released to the frontline.
Published accounts show only around 3% of PPE purchased by DHSC – equivalent to around £670m – cannot be used because it is not fit for any purpose.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many officials in his Department are employed to oversee the storage of personal protective equipment (a) in the UK and (b) overseas.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The DfT Health and Safety teams do not oversee the storage of Personal Protective Equipment. If individuals require Personal Protective Equipment as part of their role then their line managers will provide Personal Protective Equipment to them through the Procurement team and contract in place with the clothing provider. This is the same model for Personal Protective Equipment used by all of the Departmental Agencies and arms-length bodies.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the amount of money it has (a) already spent and (b) will spend in total, on defending legal challenges from the Good Law Project regarding the use of the high priority lane for personal protective equipment contracts.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
To date, the Department has spent approximately £2.12 million excluding VAT in direct costs. Following the court’s dismissal of the claim, the claimant was order to pay £250,000 inclusive of VAT towards the Department’s costs.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they plan to publish a modern slavery statement covering their procurement of personal protective equipment since January 2020.
Answered by Lord Kamall
A statement on modern slavery in the procurement of personal protective equipment is expected to be published by NHS Supply Chain in autumn 2022.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many active court cases his Department is defending itself against regarding the high priority lane for personal protective equipment.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
There have been legal challenges brought in relation to seven contracts with two suppliers that were processed through the high priority lane. These challenges have been dismissed in court and permission to appeal has so far been refused.
Asked by: Neale Hanvey (Alba Party - Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the (a) number and (b) proportion of PPE items purchased or procured by the Government are that have been manufactured by UK based companies.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government has ordered 3.9 billion items of personal protective equipment (PPE) from United Kingdom manufacturers. This represents 10.7% of all PPE ordered since the start of the pandemic. UK manufacturers have the capacity currently to meet the estimated future demand for PPE in the UK, for all categories except gloves.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 13 July 2021 to Question 25834 on Coronavirus: Protective Clothing, how many contracts for the supply of personal protective equipment pre-dated the formalised eight stage assurance process; and what was the total cost of those contracts to the public purse.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The National Audit Office (NAO) published a report on Government procurement activity in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in November last year. The report is available at the following link:
https://www.nao.org.uk/report/government-procurement-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/
The report noted (Paragraph 3.19) that by 28 April 2020, personal protective equipment contracts had been awarded to 71 suppliers, with a total value of £1.5 billion, i.e. before offers were being processed through what the NAO have described as the eight stage process. Bunzl Healthcare were one of these suppliers.
The ‘eight stage process’ is a term to describe at a point in time a structured process of checks and due diligence on suppliers which evolved in March and April 2020. It includes the introduction of a central clearance board at the beginning of May 2020 to perform checks previously performed by the Department’s Accounting Officer to add an extra level of assurance that the deal met the Department’s requirements. However, from the start all suppliers were evaluated by officials on financial standing, technical compliance and ability to perform the contract.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 15 March 2021 to Question 165584, if he will publish by (a) constituency and (b) volume where that personal protective equipment was manufactured.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We do not hold collated and validated data on the location within the United Kingdom where personal protective equipment (PPE) was manufactured. We have published the overall volume of PPE sourced from UK manufacturing for the three months from 1 December 2020 which is available at the following link:
Asked by: Gavin Robinson (Democratic Unionist Party - Belfast East)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much his Department spent on (a) items of clothing, (b) uniform and (c) personal protective clothing in each year since 2015.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Ministry of Defence has a number of contracts for clothing, uniforms and personal protective clothing with a number of suppliers, but also procures items through local procurement arrangements. Details of the spend on items of clothing, uniform and personal protective clothing in each year since 2015 are not held centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of personal protective equipment purchased by the Govenrment was manufactured in the UK in each month in the last 12 months.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government’s personal protective equipment (PPE) strategy published in September said that by 1 December 2020, United Kingdom manufacturers would be able to provide 70% of the PPE we expected to use in England through the winter, for all items except gloves. That commitment was met and exceeded. The volume of UK manufactured PPE supplied in the three months from 1 December 2020 to 28 February 2021 was sufficient to meet 82% of the amount needed over that time period. Data prior to December is not available in a fully validated form.