Covid-19: NAO Report on Government Procurement Debate
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Bell Ribeiro-Addy
Main Page: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)Department Debates - View all Bell Ribeiro-Addy's debates with the Cabinet Office
Covid-19: NAO Report on Government Procurement
Bell Ribeiro-Addy Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Eagle. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) on securing this important debate, because with every new story that emerges, the public are right to be asking questions, as this country goes through one of its most difficult times. They should not be reliant on the media or independent investigations for facts. Transparency and accountability should be coming from our Government.
This Government may have a majority, but that does not give them the right to do whatever they like. The National Audit Office investigation has rightly shone a light on what has been an absurd outsourcing strategy. In opening the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton outlined all the usual checks and balances that were completely disregarded. The pandemic was unforeseeable, and we will not criticise people for not being able to prepare for something that we could not see coming, but a country of this advancement and with the level of resources that we have, has the ability to act quickly. It should have been able to act quicker to secure PPE and testing kits within the rules. Rather than putting our trust and money in smaller companies in this country and local actors with experience, the Government wasted millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money corner-cutting with private contractors for substandard products and services.
Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said:
“While we recognise that these were exceptional circumstances, it remains essential that decisions are properly documented and made transparent if Government is to maintain public trust that taxpayers’ money is being spent appropriately and fairly.”
That is a very fair statement. However, 10% of the suppliers were referred through political channels and, by contrast, only 1% of suppliers with no links had a chance of winning a contract. How fair is that? Some £10 billion-worth of contracts were awarded without competition, and almost 500 suppliers with links to politicians or senior officials were allowed to pitch directly for work.
The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) talked about putting protection over process, but how can that be the case when, at the beginning of the pandemic, we had so many people begging for PPE and tests, while PPE and testing kits were being produced in this country? Suppliers did not receive contracts from the Government and so were forced to sell their products to the EU and other countries. The case of PestFix, which is a vermin control company, shows how bad the Government’s outsourcing has been. We really need to get a grip on this.