Storing PPE costs taxpayers £770,000 every day
The cost of storing unused pandemic PPE in warehouses has soared to £770,000 per day.
Ministers have been accused of allowing a ‘never-ending tale of government waste’ over the splurge of taxpayers’ money on personal protective equipment, including gowns, masks and gloves.
There are 13.2billion items of PPE in storage – compared to the 17.3billion pieces delivered to frontline doctors and nurses during the pandemic.
The cost of housing the items has risen from £700,000 a day in August to £770,000 today.
The majority is stored in warehouses and containers in the UK, but there are also 120million items in China.
The National Audit Office found that the amount of PPE stored in the UK was worth £8.6billion – more than the amount spent on aircraft carrier HMS Queen elizabeth and its sister ship HMS Prince of Wales.
Nick smith, a Labour member of the public accounts committee, said: ‘I am sad to say I am not surprised at the ongoing cost of storing mountains of PPE to the public purse.
‘At over £5million a week, tallied up over a year, that’s over £250million. This never-ending tale of government waste is costing us a fortune.’
The figure was revealed in a written parliamentary question, answered by health minister Will Quince.
Labour deputy leader Angela rayner told MPs: ‘This government has written off £10billion alone in PPE that was deemed unfit for use, unusable, overpriced or undelivered.’
It came after the Daily Mail reported that Pestfix, a pest controller which won £350million in PPE contracts, was forced to pay back £70million after supplying the Nhs with faulty masks and gowns.
This week it was also claimed that Tory peer Baroness Mone and her children received £29million in profits from a PPE firm called PPE Medpro, which she recommended to ministers.
The Guardian said leaked bank documents indicated huge sums of cash had been transferred, by her then-fiance, to an offshore trust, of which Baroness Mone and her children were beneficiaries.
A lawyer for the Tory peer said: ‘Baroness Mone has never had any role or function in PPE Medpro, nor in the process by which contracts were awarded to PPE Medpro.’
There are 176 ongoing contractual disputes between the Department of health and PPE providers, hinting at the huge amount of faulty equipment delivered in 2020.
The Government has said that £2.6billion of PPE remains at risk. Much of the unusable equipment will be burnt, though in June the public accounts committee criticised that decision due to the cost and environmental impact of the plan.
The watchdog also called for the Department of health to set out full details of how the equipment would be discarded, as the economic and environmental damage was ‘unclear’.
A department spokesman said: ‘We make no apology for procuring too much PPE rather than too little, and only 3 per cent of the PPE we procured was unusable in any context.’
‘Never-ending tale of government waste’