I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) for his excellent speech at the beginning of the debate. This is a fantastic opportunity to shine a light on this issue; sadly, the Government have been found lacking.
We know that huge sums of money have been spent since March. The National Audit Office report analyses £18 billion, but we know that the sums are even higher.
Due to the economic downturn, serious financial decisions will have to be made in future to protect our public finances, yet so much has been wasted and given away to friends. The need for those financial decisions is made more pressing by the way in which the procurement decisions were made. This is public money, and our communities demand answers.
Since the report came out, the Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers and Conservative MPs have been at pains to say that the contracts were rushed, but hon. Members should not forget that we had an exercise that showed what was needed in a pandemic. I believe that that still has not come to light. It should be brought to light now so that we can learn the lessons in advance of wave No. 3.
All hon. Members will pay tribute to the civil servants and armed services planners who played a key role in the huge logistical feat of managing. Without their efforts, where would we be? However, we can all remember the moment when we were watching on Sky News the aeroplane about to land, full of wonderful PPE from Turkey. Of course, that PPE arrived at great cost to the taxpayer, only to be found completely inappropriate and not to standard. That is just one snapshot. There has been a litany of errors, not just a few honest mistakes. It is clear that we need a new framework for procurement, particularly in advance of Brexit, after which we will not necessarily have the rigour that European law gives us.
I have three questions for the Minister. When will information relating to the remaining unpublished contracts be released? Will the Government commit to implement in full the recommendations of the NAO report on the rapid awarding of contracts? Thirdly, will the Minister commit to ensuring that all contract decisions will be covered by a future inquiry, with powers to prosecute any wrongdoing?
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