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1,850 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDVaccination: Condition of DeploymentI hope that the noble Lord will forgive me, but I had a lot of meetings on the Bill today. When the questions came in and I saw the original answer, to be perfectly frank, I was…03 Feb 2022HANSARDVaccination: Condition of DeploymentAs ever, the noble Baroness is absolutely right. Once again, I thank her personally for her frequent advice and questions, based on her years of experience. This gives me the…03 Feb 2022HANSARDVaccination: Condition of DeploymentOne of the things we have constantly done has been to listen—I had daily calls over the Christmas period, for example—and follow the evidence. Clearly, one of the issues may well…03 Feb 2022HANSARDPersonal Protective Equipment: AccountingThe noble Lord asks a detailed question, so I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I try to respond in some detail. If you look at the breakdown of the writedown, you will see…02 Feb 2022HANSARDPersonal Protective Equipment: AccountingThere are different ways; some of it is about stockpiling stuff that is still useful and which we would use in future anyway. We are looking at research into testing whether the…02 Feb 2022HANSARDPersonal Protective Equipment: AccountingIf I could correct the noble Baroness, the £8.7 billion does not refer to material that can no longer be used. As I said earlier, some of it can be repurposed or reused. On the…02 Feb 2022HANSARDPersonal Protective Equipment: AccountingThe Department of Health and Social Care’s anti-fraud unit has acted quickly to investigate allegations of fraud. Indeed, this question came up when I was on a call with the unit…02 Feb 2022HANSARDPersonal Protective Equipment: AccountingI thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his persistence in asking a number of questions. I think all noble Lords appreciate that we want to recognise the huge suffering of the…02 Feb 2022HANSARDPersonal Protective Equipment: AccountingIt is important to recognise that, throughout the pandemic, people were in a state of panic and there were people dying every day. What we saw was the coming together of the state…02 Feb 2022HANSARDPersonal Protective Equipment: AccountingThe noble Baroness raises a very important point about storage costs, and we are looking at how we can reduce them. We have managed to reduce weekly storage costs at the moment,…02 Feb 2022HANSARDPersonal Protective Equipment: AccountingAs I said earlier, a very small percentage was unusable, but we are looking at some of the things that are supposedly past their use-by and sell-by dates—rather similar to food;…02 Feb 2022HANSARDPersonal Protective Equipment: AccountingIf you consider how quickly the Government, and all of us, had to act during the early days of the pandemic, it was clearly an emergency. Lives were being lost. This is a stab in…02 Feb 2022HANSARDPersonal Protective Equipment: AccountingThat seems a reasonable question, but I hope the noble Baroness will understand that I do not have the answer at the moment. This is very much a dynamic situation. Some of the…02 Feb 2022HANSARDPersonal Protective Equipment: AccountingInterestingly enough, when I had the briefing with the team from the Department of Health and Social Care, I asked a very similar question about the qualification received from…02 Feb 2022HANSARDPersonal Protective Equipment: AccountingMy noble friend makes a very important point. We should completely pay tribute to all those who worked as hard as they could during a time of panic. I remember that the leader of…02 Feb 2022HANSARDPersonal Protective Equipment: AccountingThroughout the pandemic, our absolute priority has been saving lives; £8.7 billion of the personal protective equipment inventory has been written down, not written off. This does…02 Feb 2022HANSARDHealth and Care Bill31 Jan 2022HANSARDHealth and Care BillMy Lords, I will speak to two minor technical amendments, Amendments 232 and 312. These amendments, which are made to Clause 111, in relation to HSSIB, and Clause 136, in relation…31 Jan 2022HANSARDHealth and Care BillMy Lords, I understand the concerns about the lack of debate in the other place on this issue. The Government are putting in place a package of reforms to be implemented in 2023.…31 Jan 2022HANSARDHealth and Care BillPerhaps I may move on to Amendment 235, on setting the cap based on the recommendations of the Commission on Funding of Care and Support and moving the implementation date by a…31 Jan 2022