Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what contingency steps his Department is taking to ensure an adequate supply of Personal Protective Equipment in the event of a second wave of infections of covid-19.

There is a huge global demand for personal protective equipment (PPE), which is why we are both sourcing and shipping stock from abroad, alongside working with British manufacturers so we can be confident we can meet the PPE needs of health and social care over the next seven and 90 days.

Lord Deighton is leading our national effort to buy and produce more PPE. We have signed contracts for over 2 billion items of PPE through United Kingdom-based manufacturers, including facemasks, visors, gowns and aprons, ensuring we build and maintain a domestic base for the future.