A judicial review this month found the Government had acted unlawfully by failing to publish on time the contracts for PPE procurement signed at the beginning of the pandemic. The Public Accounts Committee also called out the Government on its late publication of contracts. The Government’s response has been to selectively quote from a National Audit Office report by suggesting that the NAO concluded there was never a national shortage of PPE (when, in fact, the NAO was simply quoting what NHS providers had told it).

I challenged the Health Minister on this creative use of the NAO report and pointed out that the very same report cited frontline workers’ experience of PPE shortages. See here for the NAO report and see here for the Public Accounts Committee report.