PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Coronavirus: Protective Clothing (16 June 2021)

To ask the Prime Minister, with reference to WhatsApp communications dated 27 April 2020, published by Dominic Cummings on 16 June 2021, whether the (a) Cabinet Office and (b) the Department for Health of Social Care held ministerial responsibility for the negotiation of PPE contracts on 27 April 2020.

Asked by:
Fleur Anderson (Labour)

Throughout this pandemic, the whole of Government’s priority has been to save lives, protect the NHS, and support people’s jobs and livelihoods, right across the United Kingdom. We have stood side-by-side with the private sector, procuring enormous volumes of goods and expertise with extreme urgency – often, these were literally matters of life and death. This has delivered:

• The biggest vaccination programme we have ever undertaken.

• The largest diagnostic network in British history – with over 190 million tests conducted.

• A stockpile of over 32 billion items of PPE as a result of a phenomenal cross-government, international purchasing effort.

Answered by:
Boris Johnson (Conservative)
21 June 2021