Wednesday 25th January 2023

(1 year, 3 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Markham Portrait Lord Markham (Con)
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Again, I would take issue with the words “useless material”. It was bought based on a projection of how the pandemic could progress and what would be required. The fact that it did not progress that far was thanks a lot to the work we did in being the quickest country to vaccinate in the world. So, we did not need that level of PPE; that was a good thing. We bought for a worst-case scenario and, thank goodness, we did not require it because of the action we took to get on top of it all. Now, we are dealing with the surpluses bought for that worst-case scenario and quickly disposing of them.

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Portrait Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
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My Lords, can my noble friend tell us the amount of this stuff in UK warehouses, and how much that costs daily?

Lord Markham Portrait Lord Markham (Con)
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As I mentioned before, the daily cost is roughly £700,000.