PPE: I am not sure that the manufacturer - the Baroness's husband is entirely at fault here. In February 2020 I saw on TV Chinese people wearing masks. With experience, that alarmed me, and being disabled and having a carer, I went on eBay and ordered masks and gloves. I asked some sellers in UK if the masks were CE certified and they said ''We don't need it, we left the EU. THAT WAS WRONG. We were still tied to the EU to 31/12/2020 and until then, we had to conform to EU rules, that all things manufactured had to pass EU certification, Everything. I also subscribed to the Government daily update emails, which are still being sent out.
During the first week of the pandemic, one of those emails said that it was illegal to make, sell or give away PPE which did not have the CE label. If non-certified PPE was used, the NHS could be sued for cross contamination, whether right or not.
Hospital Trust managers failed to maintain stocks of PPE for emergency. Local Authority Emergency Planning Committees were the same. Britain did not have enough PPE, and now, we could not get them, because Europe was keeping their stocks for themselves. You cannot blame them.
I can only surmise the civil servants advising the Minister of Health did not know that we still belonged to the EU and that it was illegal to manufacture PPE in this country until 2021.
The Government acted illegally by contracting with any manufacturer to make PPE in UK in 2020, because no manufacture was able to certify it with the CE logo. It takes months if not years to be in a position to make them.
They should never have placed the contracts in the first place, according to the directive given to everyone in the daily covid emails. The manufacturer should have known that we were still bound by EU rules that said we cannot make PPE to EU standards. eBay got the message right away, and sales of non-certified PPE were withdrawn from sale on that site. Fortunately I had already ordered mine, which had been dispatched. Residential Care Homes were not so fortunate.
The Government commandeered all the UK stocks of PPE for the NHS, and nothing certified was available to care home staff, which is why thousands died. Not until 2021 when we were no longer bound by EU law, did anyone have masks, and only then because someone called them 'face coverings'. Think how many lives could have been saved if they were so named in 2020.
Most of the blame must go to the Government for signing contracts in the first place. The fact that they chose the company of a Member of the House of Lord's husband, is really a minor part of the scandal. Not all manufacturers were away of the CE labels, but ignorance of the law is not a defence. The Baroness might not have known, because we now know that the civil servants did not pass on the vital knowledge to MPs that we were still part of the EU until much later. True, the buck stops at the Government ministers, and they should have known. Certainly the civil service knew, because they issued that covid update email in March 2020.
. Makes it worse, doesn't it...I think someone got out of the wrong side of the bed
