We know now that a panicked Matt Hancock did tell his department to pressurise PPE suppliers to prioritise English orders and to refuse health care orders from the three devolved nations. The evidence was clear:
Now we hear in the report from yesterday’s Holyrood health committee that two UK departments, funded by the Scottish taxpayer, with extensive overseas trade links have been told not to support Scottish attempts to buy PPE
Headlined by the Scotsman but behind their paywall when covid-related reports are expected to be freely available, the story does not, of course feature on the BBC Scotland site on this day of VE distraction, but is available in full at the Scottish Government site. Key points from Jeane Freeman’s statement below:
We have raised a specific issue with the UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, about a decision that was taken with respect to the Department for International Trade overseas network and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office issuing advice not to support new procurement requests from devolved administrations.
The Department for International Trade’s overseas networks should be supporting the devolved Administrations, as parts of the UK.
http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx?r=12632&mode=pdf
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Part of page 10 of the above report –
10:00
George Adam (Paisley) (SNP): Good morning from sunny Paisley. The recent BBC “Panorama” documentary talked specifically about the provision of PPE. In particular, the programme highlighted that the European Centre for Disease Control issued guidance on PPE in February, including on the amounts that would be needed, but the UK did not react to that advice by upscaling procurement.
There has been much criticism in the media about the UK Government’s procurement process for PPE. Has that had a knock-on effect in Scotland, and did that cause any particular problems for us?
Jeane Freeman: Certainly, we regret that the UK Government did not take part in the first European round of PPE procurement, and we said so at the time. My understanding is that the UK Government is now engaged in that process. We would certainly encourage it to do that.
We have raised a specific issue with the UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, about a decision that was taken with respect to the Department for International Trade overseas network and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office issuing advice not to support new procurement requests from devolved Administrations. My colleagues in Wales and Northern Ireland and I raised a concern with Mr Hancock about that because PPE procurement is a devolved matter, and any co-operation at UK level is voluntary. The Department for International Trade’s overseas networks should be supporting the devolved Administrations, as parts of the UK. We are yet to have a final response to that concern, although Mr Hancock has undertaken to go away and look at that.
Certainly, we look to the Department of International Trade’s overseas network to assist us when we are looking to source new overseas supply chains, or when existing supply chains might have glitches. Having that assistance withdrawn will cause us some problems and we need to have that matter resolved. We also need to encourage the UK Government to continue to participate in the European Union-wide procurement exercise.
I want to be clear about that distinction. As I have said many times, Scotland has a network of suppliers, supply chains and a distribution network—which we have obviously expanded considerably—as do Wales, Northern Ireland and England. When we choose to come together at UK level, that is an addition to each nation’s approaches, networks and supply chains. At times, that is done to provide additional assurance, and at other times, because it makes sense that, in a globally competitive market, the larger the volume that can be offered, the better the opportunity to secure supply at a reasonable price.
As other members have mentioned, some suppliers are choosing to use the current pressure on supply to increase their prices considerably. That is a regrettable position for them to take, but we have to work with it and take whatever mitigating action that we can.
George Adam: On your point about the issues that the UK Government has had with the procurement of PPE, have there been any HM Treasury consequentials for the Scottish Government from what has happened so far?
Jeane Freeman: No, there have not, yet. From memory, I say that so far we have committed just over £160 million in PPE spend during the pandemic. There is an on-going dispute between the finance secretaries of Wales, Northern Ireland and our own Ms Forbes and the Treasury about consequentials, which we have not yet received. I have raised that twice with Mr Hancock. The health ministers of the four nations have calls every week and, in two consecutive calls, I have said that that needs to be resolved; the consequentials that are due to Scotland must come to Scotland to be set against the volume of spend that we have already committed.
The Convener: The “Panorama” programme suggested that Covid-19 was removed from the list of high-consequence infectious diseases. Was that decision made in Scotland? On whose advice was that decision made?
Jeane Freeman: It was a UK-wide decision to remove it from that category. I will be happy to provide the detail of that later, because I am about to speak from memory and I am neither a scientist nor a clinician, which I am sure you have all noticed by now.
From memory, it was initially placed in that category, but then removed. Although Covid-19 is a highly infectious disease, “high consequence” is about the seriousness of the infection and the number of deaths that arise in the population as a whole. Its removal from the list by scientists and clinicians in no way undermines the seriousness of the number of deaths that there have been so far;
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By removing it from the High Consequence category the UK Gov could then downgrade the quality and extent of aPPE required and thus save money.
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Unshocking contempt for everyone in Scotland.
How blessed are we to belong in an ‘equal’ union of nations such as UK?
Not one tiny, teeny, microscopic bit.
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*****It’s Matt Hancock – you are maligning the little comedian Nick Hancock who clearly has no power over PPE decisions but did appear on a programme ‘Would I lie to you’ a lot! Perhaps this is a cause of the confusion.
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It’s not Nick Hancock – it’s Matt Hancock! You are in inadvertently maligning a less-seen comedian with no power over PPE decisions (although he did used to appear on a show called ‘Would I lie to you?’ a lot so that may be where your mix-up could have arisen! I suspect Nick Hancock would do a better job.
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Ooops
I’ve done this before
Is it because I imagine him nicking our PPE?
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