Covid-19: Contracts and Public Inquiry — House of Commons, 2021-07-07
Topic: Health
Christian Wakeford (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me earlier than expected First, I pay special tribute to frontline workers who have worked tirelessly at the forefront of fighting this deadly virus. Our nation is indebted to all those doctors, nurses and other health workers who rose above the limits of their duty, saved lives and ensured the availability of essential services. However, I want to put on the record my thanks to one particular nurse who has never been mentioned in this place—my identical twin brother. He has been on a covid ward for the duration of this pandemic and has been unable to have a vaccine because he is allergic to them. He really has been at the forefront of this pandemic; I am proud of everything that he has done, and I cannot say so enough. People have said to me a number of times, "You have an identical twin. Who is the good one and who is the evil one?" I am a Conservative MP and he is a nurse, so I will let everyone else do the math of that one The public have gone above and beyond during this pandemic—whether it be brewers and distilleries making vital hand sanitisers, chemical works such as ITAC, which I visited last year, fundamentally changing its own production methods to make hand sanitisers, or firms such as Vitafoam in Heywood and Middleton, which has gone from making beds to making face masks. Everyone has fundamentally changed the way that they work, live and, in some cases, even eat, but we are all getting to the point where we are sick of Zoom and Teams. Thankfully, the way that we socialise is coming back to the forefront and we are now able to have a cautious hug, a cautious handshake and, heaven forbid, a pint over the football tonight—and it is coming home At the onset of the crisis, against a backdrop of unprecedented global demand, there was a real fear that we would run out of vital equipment. That is why we acted quickly to secure the medical equipment and the PPE needed for our frontline workers, securing more than 22,000 additional ventilators and delivering over 11.7 billion items of PPE to frontline workers. We have moved heaven and earth, as any responsible Government would do, to keep people safe, and we make no apology for acting at pace in securing the lifesaving equipment needed to save lives In addition, this Government have secured a portfolio of 507 million doses of the eight most promising vaccines. We are not only vaccinating this country but making sure that we donate 100 million vaccines to the most needy across the globe, and I am immensely proud of that. The UK has stormed ahead with its vaccination programme, which is why we are able to unlock and why, hopefully, we are able to go back to freedom. Despite that, the SNP wanted the UK to join the EU’s vaccines scheme, with the SNP’s Mental Wellbeing and Social Care Minister, Kevin Stewart, slamming our decision to opt out of it, calling it "lunacy" and "irresponsible". We need only look to our neighbours on the continent to see that we were right. By contrast, the latest figures show that, as a result of our independent vaccine programme, 86% of people in the UK have received their first dose of a vaccine and 64% are fully vaccinated, having received their second dose We have one of the best testing regimes in the world, with the capacity to deliver over 1 million tests a day. Instead of the Opposition attacking our efforts, our achievements should be celebrated as an example of what we can do as a truly United Kingdom The Opposition’s claims about conflicts of interest in PPE contracts have been thrown out by multiple independent investigations, which have failed to find any conflicts of interest whatsoever in PPE procurement by Ministers. Indeed, the deputy chief medical officer said that an inquiry would be an unnecessary "extra burden" that would distract from the vaccine roll-out The SNP Government themselves decided to award over £500 million of contracts without competition, so perhaps the SNP should be keeping their own house in order rather than attacking our Government Transparency is fundamental to trust, and I will say that we have not got everything right. If I were to say otherwise, I would be lying—not just inadvertently misleading the House—which is why a fully independent public inquiry, starting next spring, will ensure the pandemic response is robustly examined. It will show where we got things right and where, unfortunately, we got things wrong, and we have got some things wrong during this pandemic because we are human. Hindsight is 20/20 and, in an unprecedented pandemic, people make the decisions they think are right at the time, and they can only be judged afterwards Furthermore, we have strengthened transparency around the awarding of Government contracts by bringing in new rules on Government procurement, so we can make sure that Government contracts are fully transparent and offer true value for money. We will also be publishing more information about Government contracts, so all details on the procurement process are in the public domain The Opposition have used every opportunity throughout the pandemic to play politics, from accusing Kate Bingham of cronyism to describing test and trace as money wasted. Labour and the SNP are more interested in sniping from the sidelines, but this Conservative Government have delivered for the people of this country. That is why we are able to reopen the economy and the country, and it is why we are hopefully moving forward.