PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Emergency Covid Contracts - 29 June 2021 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

Urgent questions are appearing like buses for me this week.

I am grateful for the chance to address the House about the Government’s use of emergency covid contracts. I have previously responded to debates on this issue with as much detail and candour as I have been able to provide as someone who came to this brief last June and who has tried subsequently to understand what happened in the early months of the pandemic.

The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) will know that all corners of our country have worked together to tackle covid. The public have all too often seen division between different regional authorities but, in truth, close collaboration with the devolved Administrations has been at the heart of our pandemic response, enabling swift policy action such as the roll-out of the vaccine programme UK-wide, the furlough scheme and a rapid increase in testing capacity.

At the beginning of the pandemic, over 13 million items of personal protective equipment were distributed to the devolved Administrations. Throughout the pandemic, the UK Government and the devolved Administrations have worked side by side on sourcing and supply of PPE such as FFP3 masks, and they continue to work together on meeting future demands on frontline staff. The existing procurement rules rightly allow the Government to procure at speed at times of emergency under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The rules predate covid-19, and there was no need for suspension or relaxation in order for them to be used. None the less, I understand and welcome questions that right hon. and hon. Members have about covid contracts, because how we spend taxpayers’ money matters very deeply to public trust.

It is true to say that the Government faced a number of challenges at the height of the pandemic, and we should be open about those. It is incumbent on all of us to understand not only the kinds of pressures that were on the system, but some of the shortcomings that desperately need to be addressed. That being the case, the Government are already adapting their commercial guidance and work. Following the first, independent Boardman review of procurement processes, looking at a small number of contracts in the Government Communication Service, 24 out of 28 recommendations have already been implemented, and the remainder will be met by the end of the calendar year. Following the second, wider Boardman review, which looked at PPE, ventilators, test and trace, vaccines and food parcels across Government, 28 further recommended improvements were identified, and progress on those is under way. Our Green Paper on transforming public procurement also sets out proposals to update the rules on procuring in times of extreme emergency or crisis.

Let me also briefly address the issue of Government polling during the pandemic. The Government regularly undertake research to support policy development, which includes work related to the impact of covid in areas across the UK. It is the sign of a responsible Government to understand the public’s views on how best to keep people safe to recover from the pandemic and to ensure that we will continue to deliver for all parts of the United Kingdom.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions, and I will try to address them with facts, not party political allegation. First, if I may, I would like to provide some context to the direct award of the Public First contract for communications during the pandemic. In March 2020, there was no vaccine, no test and trace, and very little knowledge of how to best manage this novel disease. Strong messaging of the kind that could alter behaviours was, at the outset of the pandemic, one of the few tools in our arsenal in the battle against transmission. It was in this context that rapid decisions were made on comms contracts, including a decision that was challenged in court recently.

Public First was taken on, alongside BritainThinks, as one of only two companies in the market deemed to have the scale, expertise and experience to provide focus group testing in March last year. Both were rapidly diverted from existing work to take a snapshot of public reaction, and that allowed us to test things such as the contain strategy, the early “Stop The Spread” campaign and the “Stay Home” message, alongside an understanding of how best to tailor messages to different audiences across the UK. These key communications campaigns were seen on television and social media, and I am sure we will all be familiar with them.

Ministers had no personal involvement in the decision to award this contract, and they do not, of course, personally approve contract awards. This contract did not relate to constitutional campaigning, and any suggestion that the Government carry out party political research is entirely false.

The Government regularly conduct research in every part of the UK to support policy development. In this case, we were testing public attitudes relating to the covid-19 pandemic. This became particularly relevant as different regions of the UK began to diverge in their approach to tackling covid, and that created understandable confusion.

Focus groups, which were conducted by Public First but commissioned by the national resilience communications hub, looked at attitudes towards the virus, upcoming recovery and the wider context in which to interpret the results, and the results were shared with relevant policy and communications teams. They were involved in developing and delivering covid policy and communications across the devolved Administrations, enabling them to differentiate their content and messages as appropriate. We do not plan to publish the full results of the polling and focus groups that have been used to inform ongoing policy formulation. However, we regularly review all the data we collect, and we intend to publish the elements that are not sensitive in due course.

Separately, the Cabinet Office carries out polling on attitudes towards the Union on a regular basis, but this work was paused during the coronavirus crisis. We are aware that the Scottish Government also conducted polling on attitudes in relation to covid. We did not see this research, nor would we expect to. The Secretary of State for Scotland has already addressed some of the questions that the right hon. Gentleman has raised online on his Twitter account.

Finally, to return to the judgment on Public First at the recent court hearing, that judgment found in favour of the Government on two grounds, which were emergency award and contract terms, including length. It was recognised that

“everyone involved was acting under immense pressure and the urgency of the…crisis did not allow time for reflection. The time constraints justified…derogation from the usual procedures required under PCR 2015. But they did not exonerate the Defendant from conducting the procurement so as to demonstrate a fair and impartial process of selection.”

We have already recognised that there was an issue of process, where we could do much better. That is why we investigated what had happened to prepare for the court case. We launched an internal independent review—the subsequent Boardman review—which is published in full online. We have taken forward its recommendations in full, and have nearly delivered all of them. A steering group, chaired by our chief financial officer, has been tracking implementation.

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman feels reassured by my answers. I look forward to continued collaboration with the Scottish Government to the benefit of citizens across our Union.

I thank my hon. Friend for pointing out just how fantastic the co-operation has been between all parts of our United Kingdom. The UK Government have provided huge support to the Scottish Government and other devolved Administrations—that comes in testing capacity; we have helped with PPE; we have obviously helped with the furlough scheme—and, as he says, that should be celebrated, not denigrated.

I have listened over this past year to the criticisms and attacks made by the Opposition and campaign groups on covid contracts, and I take them very seriously. That is why I took the time, when I assumed my role after maternity leave, to understand what happened. I do not think anyone is standing here suggesting that everything went smoothly during the height of pandemic. It did not. A whole series of challenges were faced and shortcomings highlighted. I have now twice set out in some detail the problems that have been described to me, and I have set out what we are doing to resolve them.

Let me go through some of them in relation to PPE. Some 450 people from across Government were moved into the Department of Health and Social Care to become a stand-up virtual team to assist with securing PPE. That team is normally only 21 people strong. That meant a lot of people who did not know each other working remotely on a range of different IT systems, with suppliers they did not know, on product they were not familiar with, in the most highly pressured market of their careers. That has led to lags in contract publication, as paperwork has been very tricky to join up across systems.

Faced with exceptional global demand, the usual vendors in China, which service the central procurement function, very quickly ran out of supply, and the world descended on a few factories in that country to bid for available items. It was in that market context that the Government had to procure with extreme urgency. That was often through direct award of contracts. If we did not do that, we risked missing out on vital supplies. We never ripped up procurement rules. It was a situation of genuine crisis and extreme urgency, where offers had to be accepted or rejected in a matter of hours or days, and it was simply not viable to run the usual procurement timescales.

The effort to secure PPE was herculean and involved setting up a new logistics network from scratch. I have explained in Parliament on a number of occasions that the VIP fast-track lane that has been touted often by the Opposition, was actually a mailbox set up by officials during the height of the pandemic to consider some of the 15,000 offers of assistance to supply PPE. In the early months, leads were coming in a lot faster than they could be processed. When they were rejected, or if they were delayed, people started chasing them through their MPs or through Ministers. To manage that influx of offers, a separate mailbox was set up to handle this area of work and sift credible offers.

I addressed yesterday concerns about private email use and the rules governing it. Government guidance is that official devices, email accounts and comms applications should be used for communicating classified information, but that other forms of electronic communication may be used in the course of conducting Government business. Each Minister is responsible for ensuring that Government information is handled in a secure way. We also set out that where business is conducted on non-official IT, relevant information should be recorded on Government systems, but we are keeping the guidance under review to ensure that it is up to date.

The most important thing to note, as the right hon. Lady does, is that all PPE offers, no matter where they came from, went through the same eight-stage checks. The PPE team compared prices with those obtained in the previous two weeks, to benchmark the competitiveness of those offers. Separate approval and additional justification were required for any offers not within 25% of the average that were considered for possible approval. It is also important to note that of the 493 offers that went through the priority mailbox, I understand that only 47 were taken forward—in other words, 90% were rejected.

There have been judicial reviews in respect of some of those contracts. The case relating to the Department of Health and Social Care looked not at the awarding of contracts, but at the delays in publishing their details. Health Ministers have always been clear that transparency is vital, and the court found that there was no deliberate policy to delay publication. In the judicial review relating to Public First, the court recognised

“that everyone involved was acting under immense pressure and the urgency of the…crisis did not allow time for reflection. The time constraints justified the…derogation from the usual procedures required under PCR 2015. But they did not exonerate the Defendant”—

us—

“from conducting the procurement so as to demonstrate a fair and impartial process of selection.”

We recognised very quickly that there was an issue of process where we could do much better. That is why we investigated what happened to prepare for that court case and launched an internal review into the contracts that were undertaken. Public First has cross-party directors and, as I mentioned, we already have a programme of work in the two Boardman reviews.

I appreciate that throughout the pandemic the Opposition have wanted to raised questions about the contracts. I hope that I can address them as best I can. If there are any questions that the right hon. Lady feels I have not covered, I will come back to her on them.

Thank you, Mr Speaker; I appreciate your zeal and I think you are right.

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. We have tried throughout to be transparent, but I have set out some of the very good reasons why it has been difficult sometimes to publish the contracts in a timely way. This has been a very complex process where we have had to surge teams at very short notice and go back through all the paperwork, looking across different IT systems across different Departments. That has been a challenge that I have tried to address, as has the Department of Health and Social Care. My understanding is that all PPE contracts are now transparently published. We are working through them all in relation to comms and have a programme of work under way to make sure that we have transparent publication. I completely agree that it is important that we offer reassurances to the public on how taxpayers’ funds are used.

I thank the right hon. Member for his inquiries. As I say, 47 went through the high-priority lane, and discussions are under way on the extent to which we can be transparent about that because of commercial sensitivities. However, as I said, all PPE contracts have now been transparently published.

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is quite right to point out that we absolutely need commercial expertise in times of pandemic and any similar crises that may come along. As we look at how we can do things better on procurement in the future, we must guard against crowding out external expertise and taking an overly cautious approach to risk. While I absolutely accept that there are questions to be asked after the event, the priority in times of crisis must always be delivering on the ground, and that is what we have always sought to do.

I thank the hon. Lady, who has done tremendous work through the Public Accounts Committee in scrutinising this area. Sometimes I think she has been leading the opposition—not the Opposition—on this. It is important that we focus on where we had problems and the very genuine concerns that need to be addressed. She raises matters in relation to emails. I cannot comment on email conversations that I have not seen.

But those are relevant only when officials are asked to take any action, and that is the point at which official process and procedure come into play. I know the hon. Lady does not want to listen to this, but that is why the eight-stage process that officials undertook is so important; that is the aspect that should reassure the public that there are procedures that ensure that taxpayers’ money is spent correctly.

My hon. Friend is right that the devolved Administrations also use regulation 32 to procure in an emergency. It is important to note that the Government are dissatisfied with the procedures at our disposal. That is why, in our procurement Green Paper, we are looking at what measures we can take to procure with greater transparency and success in times of crisis to give us a better option between a full-fat procurement, which takes too long, or a direct award, which raises concerns about transparency.

I thank the right hon. Lady for her question. As I said, we do not use public money for political campaigning purposes.

I assure my hon. Friend that I am not auditioning for that position; the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has not been kidnapped. He is in Scotland, as part of our efforts to make sure that we are less Whitehall-centric as a government—we have offices now in Glasgow.

My hon. Friend is right about the importance of being able to take sensible risks that save lives in times of crisis, which is what we did in a number of these areas, and that was the right decision to make.

There was a proper demonstration of the will of the Scottish people when they had their referendum on Scottish independence and made their views clear. Interestingly, Scottish National party Members never seem to accept that.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that this was not a PPE contract; it was a contract about communications and the important role they played in managing the pandemic at a time when we did not have the vaccine, the testing capacity that we wanted or other measures that we needed to tackle the pandemic. Communications, in this context, were extremely important in making sure the public understood the behaviours they needed adopt to keep themselves safe.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and I do agree. As I set out, there are a number of assurances the public should take from the way in which contracts are managed and handled; these things are quite separate from Ministers, which should provide the public with the comfort they want.

Yes, I believe that the Public Accounts Committee will be updated on the second Boardman report in July. With regard to the first Boardman report on communications contracts, we are working through all the recommendations. I believe we are up to 20 of 24, but we will endeavour to complete that process by the end of the year.[Official Report, 12 July 2021, Vol. 699, c. 2MC.]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I believe that the Opposition asked us to strain every sinew at the time of the pandemic, and that is what we did.

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. There was no money used on political campaigning.

My hon. Friend is quite right to set out some of the challenges we faced at the height of the pandemic. When it comes to procuring PPE, for instance, we were competing with every other country in the world for PPE from just a few factories in China, and that was extremely difficult. Frankly, if we had dithered and delayed, we would not have secured the supplies we needed. In terms of learning the lessons that he wishes us to learn, I can assure him that we are already doing that. That is why we conducted the Boardman 1 and 2 reviews, and the National Audit Office has looked over these matters in fine detail. The public inquiry into covid will begin next spring.

I thank the hon. Lady for her concerns, and I wish to assure her that a link to the Conservative party was not one of the criteria that needed to be fulfilled when those PPE contracts were being undertaken.

In relation to the challenges we faced in trying to transparently publish all the contracts, I have set out some of the reasons for them. It was partly because a team of 450 people had to be surged across Government, and they were all working on different IT systems. Going back and trying to look at all the documentation relating to PPE has been a real challenge, and those challenges have been acknowledged in the various court cases that have been brought. I wish to assure the hon. Gentleman with regard to the emails that, in so far as freedom of information requests are made, they will be looked at in the relevant way.

I thank my hon. Friend for his question about the Loch Ness monster whose existence I can neither confirm nor deny. He is right to highlight the fantastic ways in which our Union has worked together during the pandemic, whether that be on vaccine procurement, on the schemes that have been run out by the Treasury, or on some of the testing capacity that we have provided. We should not overlook the fantastic Union story that we have seen during this pandemic.

As I have set out on numerous occasions this afternoon, that was not political campaigning; it was important work that was being undertaken as part of our response to the pandemic.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out the importance of what business achieved with the Government in relation to the pandemic. Some fantastic commercial expertise has been brought into Government. One thing we want to do is to set up a secondments unit to make sure that we can get that private sector expertise into Government when it is needed. There are also number of other initiatives, such as civilian reserves, that can be used so that we can get that expertise as and when we need it in times of crisis.

I set out the reasons for the court case and what the judgment actually said, rather than what the hon. Gentleman is implying that it said. It was in relation to some procedural issues that we have addressed via the Boardman recommendations.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I have already said in this Chamber, tremendous work has been done with every corner of the UK and every devolved Administration, whether that is the vaccine programme, the furlough scheme or the rapid increase in testing capacity.

I am afraid that I do not know in relation to the private meetings that Dominic Cummings had when he was in Government, but I know that he has set out concerns about our response to procurement in relation to getting the wrong answers after the event. I think he is concerned about whether we then create too much process around important decisions that need to be made in the heat of the moment, and he is right to set out those concerns. We need to make sure that our Green Paper on procurement makes us have better decision-making processes in times of crisis that can be properly scrutinised.

I am enjoying your zest today, Mr Speaker.

The hon. Gentleman raised with me the importance of onshore manufacturing capacity in Westminster Hall last week. I have asked for a briefing on the issue and shall get back to him, because he raised an important issue about the extent to which we have key manufacturing capacity in this country. Project Defend in the Department for International Trade aims to ensure that we have the capacity that we need.

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight how fantastically the devolved Administrations have worked with central Government on some of the critical issues that have faced us during the pandemic. He raised the issue of large firms. One hope in our procurement Green Paper is that our procurement reforms will make it much easier for small and medium-sized enterprises to bid for key Government contracts.