Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent estimate he has made of the level of procurement of British steel by his Department in the last 12 months.

The Department has procured no steel directly in the last 12 months. Where required, the majority of steel is purchased by the National Health Service and this is a local decision with no data collected centrally.

The contractors on the Department’s Procure21+ framework have confirmed that approximately 3,000 tonnes of British steel was procured by them for projects delivered for and by the NHS in the last 12 months. We are unable to provide estimates for projects delivered outside the P21+ framework as this would require writing to each NHS organisation and would incur a disproportionate cost.

The Department promulgates all central guidance on the procurement of steel to the NHS, including the Cabinet Office Guidance ‘Procurement Practise Note 16/15 - procuring steel in major projects’ and has included this as a contractual requirement in the new Procure22 design and construction framework.