Thank you for contacting me about the Government’s procurement of PPE.
As you will be aware, the Good Law Project has sought to launch several judicial review proceedings into various aspects of PPE contracts awarded by government during the pandemic.
Governments around the world have faced unprecedented demand for essential goods, services and work throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and especially in 2020. The Government and our other public authorities had to respond rapidly in that time of national crisis. The overwhelming priority was to ensure that adequate PPE supplies were provided to the NHS frontline, to keep our doctors, nurses and other hospital staff safe as they dealt with the first surge of the coronavirus. It is right that the Government prioritised saving lives above all else.
Further, it is important to remember that the equipment was procured in that incredibly challenging environment, and I am proud that 32 billion items of PPE have been procured and over 19.8 billion items have been distributed since the start of the pandemic.
At the outset of the coronavirus outbreak, it was made clear to all public authorities that they may need to procure new services with extreme urgency. For the avoidance of doubt, this is not a change to the public procurement regulations. There are well-established procedures in the Public Contracts Regulations for handling extremely urgent procurements and they have been used by a variety of public authorities including the UK Government and devolved administrations. Other countries followed similar urgent procurement processes.
It was also made clear throughout that value for money must be achieved for taxpayers, that good commercial judgement must be used and that the details of any awards made should be published in line with Government transparency guidelines. All contracts were negotiated and vetted by civil servants, and I pay tribute to all officials who worked incredibly hard to ensure that those contracts were finalised, and that the PPE reached hospital staff in a timely manner.
I am aware of reports that suggest £8.7 billion of PPE has been wasted. I strongly disagree with this characterisation and only 3 per cent of PPE the department has purchased cannot be used. Much of this PPE will be made available for other purposes and, further, as I have already mentioned, the overwhelming priority was to ensure that adequate PPE supplies were provided to the NHS frontline. It is right that the Government prioritised saving lives above all else.
Thank you again for contacting me.