Labour has been making much hay out of the government’s £8.7 billion spend on personal protective equipment (PPE), much of it bought at the height of the Covid pandemic. The shadow Treasury minister Pat McFadden claimed the figure would be ‘galling to hard-working households’ while his colleagues have made much of the government’s VIP lane to secure kit that was in desperately short supply throughout much of 2020 and 2021.
Mr S abhors waste as much as the next man. But it’s worth asking as to what Labour’s own alternatives would have been if they were running the country when millions of items were suddenly required for frontline NHS staff.
Indeed, it’s worth looking at how Parliament itself operated throughout this period when it came to procuring face masks for its staff and MPs, Labour and Tory alike. For despite Parliament being either virtual or a ghost town for much of this period, the House of Commons spent some £51,000 throughout the past two years. A
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