To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much his Department spent on (a) costs associated with the resolution of disputed contracts for and (b) other costs arising from the disposal of personal protective equipment between January 2020 and January 2023.

A team solely dedicated to the resolution of contracts was established in April 2022. Prior to April 2022 work on contract resolution was a proportion of staff time across several different teams, and it is therefore not possible to accurately extract those costs. The Department has assessed the directly attributable costs between April 2022 and March 2023 (using an estimation for March 2023) as £5,367,486. These costs relate to contingent labour, consultancy, and legal fees.

The Department has defined ‘other costs’ of disposal to include the following: costs committed and spent with Lead Waste Partners and others for disposal, and costs of staff time working on disposals. The total during the period January 2020 to end of January 2023 was £18.55 million.