Government PPE Contracts

Rosie Winterton Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before we begin this debate, I would like to remind Members that the motion gives general reasons why the House might agree to the Humble Address. The normal rule that reflections must not be cast upon Members of either House of Parliament, except on a substantive motion, remains in force. I am sure right hon. and hon. Members will ensure that that rule is stuck to in their speeches. I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition.

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[Angela Rayner]

The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee is absolutely right. It is absolutely eye-watering and astonishing that 176 contracts remain in this situation. The public can see that and they are frustrated, because it is not acceptable and not okay to govern in that way. The public rightly want answers, and they want them now.

The links between the company Medpro and the Tory peer in question were never publicly disclosed. In fact, they were denied repeatedly by the lawyers acting for those involved. We now know that the money ended up in offshore accounts directly linked to those individuals. By their own admission, this was for so-called tax efficiency. It seems that they even dodged paying their own taxes on the profits they made from ours. Only after a long legal battle was it revealed that there was active lobbying from ministerial colleagues for access to the VIP lane and substantial contracts were won by those companies. They said that the peer in question did not benefit from these contracts. That denial has been rather undermined by the latest revelations of The Guardian, rather than any disclosure of Ministers. It was only some time after The Guardian exposed those links that a Minister, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), finally told me in answer to a parliamentary question:

“Departmental records reflect that a link between Baroness Mone and PPE Medpro was clear prior to contracts being awarded.”

But Ministers have, for months, refused to show us those records or tell us the nature of that link and whether it was declared or discovered in due diligence.

This was the subject of an investigation by the Standards Commissioners in the other place, yet it appears that Ministers sat on the information that they had. The question is very simple: what have Ministers got to hide? Did they know all along who was behind PPE Medpro, or was due diligence so poor that they did not realise the problem? If they had nothing to hide and no rules or laws were broken, Ministers will surely be happy to make the details of the meetings and correspondence available. While they are at it, will the Minister give us clarity about allegations made by the former Health Secretary in his new book about a separate bid for business connected to Baroness Mone?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The right hon. Lady is venturing rather too far into the territory that I urged her to avoid. I am afraid that those are the rules, so I have to pull her up if she is actively criticising a Member of the other place. I am sorry about that, but those are the rules.

[Angela Rayner]

I was not criticising Members from the other place. I am just quoting what a Member from this place, who was a Health Minister at the time, said. I am asking this Minister today if he can give us clarity on what was said, because that is now on the public record. That is all I am asking the Minister for. I have not said that about any person from the other place—that is what a former Minister said in his diaries, so it would be nice if this Minister can give us some light on this whole murky affair.

Let us turn to the numbers because, as they say, the numbers don’t lie. Ten: how many times more likely to get a contract a company was if it was in the VIP lane. One in five: the proportion of emergency contracts handed out by the Government that have been flagged for corruption. Three and a half billion: the value, in pounds, of contracts given to the Tory party’s mates—that we know of. Three billion: the value, in pounds, of contracts awarded that warrant further investigation. None, zilch, zero: the number of times this Government have come clean about this dodgy Medpro scandal. A cover-up, a whitewash, events swept under the carpet—and now they have been dragged kicking and screaming to the House today to give an honest account of their shameful dealings. The public are sick of being ripped off and taken for fools. They want to know the truth.

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[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I would go further. I know from the correspondence I have been receiving that the public feel that way, and that many Conservative voters are absolutely shocked by what they have seen this Conservative Government do. They do not believe that the Government speak to their values, yet this has happened and we have a Procurement Bill going forward where this could happen again. So for today at least, the question before the House is simple: clean-up or cover-up?

I know that Members across this House care about our democracy, and although we disagree on many things, I hope we agree on the importance of trust in politics, the values of integrity, professionalism and accountability in public office and the public’s wish for more transparency and accountability within these four walls. Put simply, a vote for this motion is a vote in favour of the truth. This Government have presided over scandal after scandal engulfing their party. They appear to have benefited from dodgy lobbying, left, right and centre. Voting today for yet another cover-up will send another clear message to the public that this Prime Minister cares more about protecting vested interests than putting things right, and that his own promise of “integrity, professionalism and accountability” is just more hot air. After what they have put the British people through, this surely cannot be the message that Conservative Members want to send.

Labour has a plan to turn this procurement racket on its head and tackle the obscene waste with an office for value for money, to ensure that public money is spent with the respect that it deserves. It is about time that Conservative Members got with that programme. So I say today—I hope Conservative Members are listening—let us end the cover-up and begin the clean-up, and let us start it now. I commend this motion to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I know that hon. and right hon. Members heard what I said previously. I just want to add that while these matters are not sub judice, they are under investigation by law enforcement agencies and the Lords Commissioners for Standards, and nothing should be said to prejudge or prejudice any investigations. I am sure that that will be borne in mind.

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[Neale Hanvey]

At the beginning of the pandemic in one of my first Prime Minister’s questions, I asked the then Prime Minister if he would ensure that profiteering would have no place in this Government’s response to the covid pandemic. Now, when we fast-forward to all these years later, that seems to have been at the very heart of it. The British people were told that this Government were helping them. British industry was told that it was going to be supported. I have persisted in my questions about how the domestic diagnostic industry has been promised work by this Government, yet it is being charged for doing the right thing. Will the Minister apologise—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.

[Will Quince]

I will come on to many of the points the hon. Gentleman has raised, but I will just say this about UK supply chains. At the beginning of the pandemic, only 1% of PPE used in the UK was produced here. At present, three quarters of the FFP-3 masks provided to the NHS and social care are now manufactured in the United Kingdom and contracts were signed with around 30 UK-based companies to manufacture around 3.9 billion items of PPE.

Colleagues will recall those early days, with planes being turned around on the tarmac, countries imposing export bans, huge inflation in global prices and the price of crucial items such as glass increasing sixfold. These were the conditions under which tough decisions were taken, and these were the decisions under which PPE was procured. These were the conditions under which we stepped up to protect our most vulnerable and to save lives.

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[Karl Turner]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman must allow the Minister to answer. It is not fair to shout back as soon as he starts answering.

[Will Quince]

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) will know that civil servants had to take decisions about speed, pace and quantity. They were looking at contracts that would get the most amount of PPE for the best value for money as quickly as possible.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The Minister has indicated that he will give way shortly. Let him make a bit of progress.

[Will Quince]

I have given way equally to both sides so far in this debate. I have some reluctance to give way to Members who tell others to sit down while they are speaking or making interventions.