Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Jason McCartney Excerpts
Thursday 11th June 2020

(3 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Elliot Colburn Portrait Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
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What steps his Department is taking to support the procurement of personal protective equipment for frontline public sector workers.

Jason McCartney Portrait Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
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What his Department’s role is in the procurement of personal protective equipment for frontline public sector workers.

Penny Mordaunt Portrait The Paymaster General (Penny Mordaunt)
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We are supporting the Department of Health and Social Care to get personal protective equipment to those who need it. We have expanded both overseas supply and domestic manufacturing and scaled up our logistics network for delivering that PPE to the frontline.

Penny Mordaunt Portrait Penny Mordaunt
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We have 400 officials working on ensuring that we have robust PPE supply chains. I thank my hon. Friend and all those who have volunteered alongside him. That last-mile delivery has been critical in getting equipment to the many hundreds of organisations that have needed it in our constituencies, and volunteers have been critical to doing that.

Jason McCartney Portrait Jason McCartney
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Will my right hon. Friend join me in thanking all the wonderful volunteers on my patch who have been making scrubs and all the local textile companies that have switched production to help produce PPE, including McNair Shirts in Slaithwaite, which has been producing gowns for my local hospital? It needs help in getting specialist material, which is being bought up centrally by Government and is sitting in a warehouse. Can my right hon. Friend see whether we can get some of that material to McNair so that it can make gowns for the local hospital?

Penny Mordaunt Portrait Penny Mordaunt
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I thank all those people in my hon. Friend’s constituency, no matter which sector, for the work they have been doing on PPE. It just shows what can be done when the private, public and third sectors work together and are facilitated in doing that. If he writes to me with the details of those organisations, I will see what we can do to get them those raw materials.