2.2 billion wasted on useless ppe says report in telegraph

[Sanguinesuzy]

Mind boggling amount. Not a million, 2 billion. The kind of money that funds national policies that can change lives. More than the entire schools recovery fund. One spanish intermediary was paid £38 million as commissions and delivered nothing. Now in USA. Pest control company in west sussex, no experience in ppe, produced £120 million wrongly specified ppe, but hey tory donors, no probs. Absolutely disgusting looting of the public purse but hey brexit done....

So, would Labour not have bought PPE then?

Labour might not age paid their jeweller friends or those with no experience whatsoever to do it.

That said, the amount pales into insignificance when compared to 39 billion for a failed track and trace.

@BananaMilkshakeWithCream

So, would Labour not have bought PPE then?

No, because Labour haven't been in power for years.

Its absolutely criminal what has happened and how effectively its been covered up.

Your weekly reminder that pandemic was top of the national risk register for years before covid and that the government should have had decent plans in place before it hit rather than pissing about with pointless other stuff, like Brexit. Particularly as Exercise Cygnus in 2016 pointed up all the weaknesses in our preparedness. This is 100% a Tory failing.

@BananaMilkshakeWithCream

So, would Labour not have bought PPE then?

I'm astonished anyone would think that this is a valid response to the facts.

No-one is holding Labour up as the yardstick by which these actions should be measured. The yardstick is not wasting £2bn of public money.

Done through back channels, private emails and WhatsApp too.

My point is, how can anyone prove that Labour would have done any better and spent any less?
As @the80sweregreat rightly pointed out Labour have not been in power for years which is clearly the will of the people of the UK. Tory bashers have to put up with that.

FFS @BananaMilkshakeWithCream give over. Any criticism of the Tory party is met with ‘what about Labour’. This isn’t about labour. This is about the story party stealing money from the public to give to their friends because they can. End of.

*Tory party. My phone hates me.

@GrealishHairband

FFS *@BananaMilkshakeWithCream* give over. Any criticism of the Tory party is met with ‘what about Labour’. This isn’t about labour. This is about the story party stealing money from the public to give to their friends because they can. End of.

No, I won’t be told to give over. These are my views.

Retrospect is a marvellous thing!
Everything is so easy if you can plan it on the past.

No, I won’t be told to give over. These are my views.
Views which don't make sense. Is nobody ever accountable for a crime because hypothetically someone else might commit the same crime?

Everything is so easy if you can plan it on the past.
That's why we have plans in place, rules that have to be followed - so that when the crisis comes we don't end up making it worse. The Tories didn't follow the rules. They gave the money to their mates - why do people not care?

And bona fide companies that make high quality ppe and have been doing so for decades couldn't even get to speak to anyone in either the NHS or the DOH or the cabinet office.

It's hard to care much given the pandemic has cost about £450 biln so far.

If we change the name from PPE to Benefits there will be more outrage.
If people thought £2.2 bill was in the grubby palm of a benny cheat there would be froth.

This is just Tories doing Tory things so it's ok.

It was another Hancock balls up.
Someone, about a year ago, linked a Youtube clip of a seminar given by Whitty. He addressed students way before we even knew of Covid19. All about the reality of preparing for a pandemic. It was going to happen, the scientists were waiting. And when it did, we got a panicked response, scrambling around, searching for PPE (remember the huge shipment that was due to arrive from Turkey and how that turned out - what a farce).
We should have had stockpiled PPE prior to this - we should never had been in a situation where we ran out within weeks of the first wave.
Bloody disgraceful.

I just don't care about this. Of course people are going to make bad, hasty decisions in the crucible of a pandemic. It was SO hard to get hold of PPE. Even with planning in place we haven't had a pandemic for 100 years. £2 billion is a lot of money but it is peanuts in the wider context.

We did stockpile PPE before this. They stockpiled for a flu pandemic. The PPE for a coronavirus pandemic is different.

@BananaMilkshakeWithCream

So, would Labour not have bought PPE then?

How is that relevant? This isn’t election manifesto stuff. We are talking about the government of the day giving money to their mates.

£2,200,000,000 is a lot of money to give to mates.

I thought the Tories were the sensible ones with money (I don’t actually believe that for a second).

They had better choices, but instead made deals with people they knew instead of the best companies for the job.

It is disgusting.

@Ooodlesofboodles

I just don't care about this. Of course people are going to make bad, hasty decisions in the crucible of a pandemic. It was SO hard to get hold of PPE. Even with planning in place we haven't had a pandemic for 100 years. £2 billion is a lot of money but it is peanuts in the wider context.

Peanuts? In the wider context?

Wider context of what? Do you know how much £1,000,000,000 actually is within the context?

If it’s peanuts, then why are the Tories so tight giving enough money to education and the NHS?

Even with planning in place we haven't had a pandemic for 100 years

A pandemic was one of the top top risks on the health’s risk register. Not specific to flu. And disgracefully, while they knew the risk was high, they ignored it and did not plan.

The government (by a separate body to the NHS) keeps a PPE stockpile and some of that PPE could have been used for covid. Shame that they didn’t plan accordingly.

That’s the scandal. That’s why the Tories ended up panic buying (from their greasy mates) and spending billions for poor equipment. It makes me wonder who was making these decisions to be honest.

I think the government did a rubbish job of procuring PPE at the start of the pandemic, notwithstanding the mass global scramble for PPE making it very difficult.

I have mixed feelings about their lack of preparation for a pandemic. Yes, an epidemic may have always been a stated risk but it was hard to foresee what came to pass. There are still times I can't believe what has happened in the last 18 months. Given that PPE has a shelf life, I can't really blame the government for spending that money on more pressing issues. I do feel more strongly about the utter waste of money on the test and trace scheme.

The thing that is telling is that this government doesn’t want an investigation and is clearly pushing it into the long grass.

That tells me that they know they’ve done things that they should not have done. Which is worse than making a mistake.

It will also show they’re happy to splash the cash on shoddy stuff, but not where it is needed.