Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the commitment by the Prime Minister in October 2020 to make 70 per cent of PPE in the UK, how much and what proportion of PPE is being made in the UK; and how much and what proportion of Government spending on PPE is on PPE made in the UK.

‘Personal protective equipment (PPE) strategy: stabilise and build resilience’, published in September 2020, committed to ensure that for the following winter, the supply of United Kingdom manufactured PPE would be sufficient to meet 70% of demand for all categories, except gloves. In that period, UK manufactured goods met 82% of demand. The Department has ordered over 36 billion items of PPE, of which 3.9 billion or approximately 11%, was ordered from UK manufacturers. The total cost was £14.4 billion, of which £1.3 billion or 9%, was for orders with UK manufacturers.