Recommendation 12

Government’s PPE strategy aims to build a UK manufacturing base so that there is a resilient domestic supply. The Department explained that 70% of PPE (excluding gloves) that it expected would be supplied between December 2020 and February 2021 should come through contracts set up under the Department’s UK Make programme. It cited contracts for this programme as one of the reasons that the number of orders it made peaked in June, after the initial pandemic peak. We were concerned that this domestic production risked being undermined by surpluses of PPE and asked whether it would need to consider reducing its existing contracts. The Department explained that some of the PPE stocks were of items such as aprons and gloves which the sector used in high volumes, but accepted there was a bigger challenge for other types of PPE such as respirator masks.18