Whether he has made an assessment of the adequacy of public procurement processes under covid-19 emergency regulations.

Whether he has made an assessment of the adequacy of public procurement processes under covid-19 emergency regulations.

There are well established procedures in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 for handling emergency procurements, which enable the Government to procure lifesaving goods and expertise. We followed those procedures in order to save lives as fast as we could during the worst pandemic in living memory. The Procurement Act 2023, which has just passed both Houses of Parliament, will introduce faster competition processes for emergency buying, reducing the reliance on direct awards while retaining and improving transparency, and the ability to act at pace in situations similar to the covid pandemic.

I am deeply saddened by the death of our dear friend Sir Tony Lloyd.

I fear that the Procurement Act will allow for the same horrific waste of taxpayers’ money and the approach to public procurement that we experienced during the pandemic, with friends and donors to the Tory party being given the first bite of the cherry while decent local skilled businesses are increasingly sidelined by the Government’s approach. We saw that in recent analysis from the British Chambers of Commerce. Can the Minister explain why small and medium-sized enterprises are increasingly being sidelined from access to public procurement?

I have to take issue with a number of the hon. Gentleman’s points. First and foremost, the idea, constantly repeated by Opposition Members, that there was special consideration for individual companies—[Interruption.] It is very important that we go through this yet again. The hon. Gentleman has had answers on this twice in the past year, but I am going to tell him a third time: the simple fact of the matter is that everyone who applied for a contract went through the same process. Very hardworking and professional civil servants made those judgments in uniquely difficult circumstances. Frankly, I am sick of hearing slurs against their good name. [Interruption.]

If the Minister has to say it for a fourth time, I hope that we will not get the attention we are receiving today.

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend Mr Dhesi. In spite of the Minister’s protestations, the evidence is to the contrary —[Interruption.]

Order. We do not need the Parliamentary Private Secretary chipping in. Is that understood?

Thank you.

The fact that Ministers’ mates can get these lucrative contracts, as last month’s evidence showed, while tens of thousands of our constituents struggle to put food on the table is an absolute disgrace. Of the £12.6 billion-worth of personal protective equipment contracts let in 2020, will the Minister confirm—I have evidence on this, so I advise him to choose his language carefully—that up to a third were fraudulent, or the result of profiteering or conflicts of interest?

I would be very interested to see the hon. Lady’s evidence. Where there is evidence of fraud, we will of course go after that, as we have done so in a number of high-profile cases. Where investigations are ongoing, we will recoup as much money as we can for the British taxpayer.

I call the shadow Minister.

I, too, wish to put on the record my condolences to Tony Lloyd’s family. He will be missed across the House, and across the Labour movement as a whole.

The Government lost £9 billion through duff, unusable PPE. The Prime Minister, when Chancellor, signed off £7 billion-worth of dodgy covid loans. Even today, the Government are losing £10 billion to tax fraud, £6 billion to universal credit fraud, and billions more across the public sector as a whole. Is the truth not that families are paying £1,200 more on average in tax because the Government simply cannot be trusted with taxpayers’ money?

I really struggle with that line of questioning. Opposition Members have very short memories. This was the worst pandemic that we have had in over a century. The pressures on Government were immense. The accusation that we bought too much PPE is akin to people standing up in 1945 and saying that the Government bought too many Spitfires.