Matt Hancock is wrong to dismiss European comparisons to UK’s runaway Covid PPE purchasing

24 March 2025

Last week at the Covid Inquiry, the former Health Secretary Matt Hancock dismissed data and analysis showing the UK’s runaway purchasing of PPE compared to its European peers. He described the comparisons as “meaningless” and lacking “factual value”. He is entirely incorrect in these claims as we demonstrate below.

In our written evidence to the Inquiry, we shared an illustrative comparison of major direct  contract awards in the key Covid procurement categories across similar EU economies. That comparison shows that, based on the best public data available, the UK used many more direct awards for Covid contracts, for larger amounts, for longer than its European peers. 

Matt Hancock said the comparison was “meaningless” because only the UK has the NHS as a larger centralised purchaser and other European countries have different healthcare systems.

His analysis is mistaken. Here’s why…

Reporting duties

NHS or not, every European country (including the UK at the time) was obliged to report major tenders in the key procurement categories that we used for our comparison for items like “medical consumables” and “medical equipments” under the EU Procurement Directive. Our Covid buying comparisons chart to the Inquiry, which draws on these procurement award notices across Europe, is a meaningful like-for-like comparison.

We confirmed this comparative data publication with three leading European procurement experts. They all agreed that tenders and purchases of items like medical consumables are in scope for the Procurement Directive and that the data is widely reported. They explained that the type of health system you have doesn’t affect publishing procurement notices for key categories of goods like medical consumables. One of the experts we checked with helps run their country’s procurement authority so directly publishes this information. 

Clearly comparable data

The award data in these categories proves this point. Public or private insurance health systems, the data on the tenders in the key Covid categories that we looked at are widely available and comparative with the UK looking very similar to its European peers in 2019 before a radical change in 2020. 

We drew up the comparison charts from data on the EU’s central database on procurement called Tenders Electronic Daily (TED), looking at the award data in key procurement categories for Covid PPE. The full methodology and findings are here in our submission to the Inquiry. which explains in more detail the Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV) categories that we used for our analysis and why. We also emphasised that the data are messy and are more useful for broad comparisons than giving exact figures.

Looking back beyond Covid

Let’s now look at the number of contract award notices in the key Covid procurement categories in 2019 (i.e. before Covid). There are a lot of procurement awards in these categories across Europe, contrary to Mr Hancock’s assertion that the UK is the only big buyer because of the NHS. The UK is, in fact, only about 1.5% of total notices in these categories in 2019 so is very far from being the only buyer.

If we look at the values of those awards in 2019, the UK is higher as a percentage of the total for all of Europe (14%). But this was not disproportionate (despite the NHS) given the UK economy made up around 15% of Europe’s GDP at the time.  

If we then look at 2020, the UK’s respective level of purchasing in these categories shoots up. The chart below compares the percentage of total value of contracts in the key Covid procurement categories in 2019 and 2020. In 2019, the UK made up around 14% of the market. But in 2020, it bought so much in these key Covid procurement categories, it comprised 65% of the total European contract awards on TED.

The data shows that the UK was comparable to its European peers in 2019 but in 2020 during Covid there was an anomalous difference.  

Here’s the 2020 pattern of runaway UK buying using direct awards in those key Covid procurement categories that our former Health Secretary dismissed last week. We’ve added 2019 and a few more European peers with more nationalised healthcare systems to make the comparison even clearer.

You can see that the UK buying behaviour looks just like its peers in 2019. In 2020, there is a spike up across Europe in direct awards in key Covid categories for everyone, but the UK just keeps going and going (with EUR 17.9 billion in total direct awards in these categories). 

If we zoom into 2019, you can see even more clearly how the UK pattern looks very similar to its European peers.

Now let’s look at just the total value of contracts awarded in 2019 and 2020 side-by-side. Again, in 2019 the size of UK buying is pretty comparable to its European peers; again 2020 paints a very different picture.

Lastly, here is the chart on the UK’s runaway spending for all awards made in those key Covid PPE procurement categories (not just direct awards). It is the same pattern so it was not that European peers were buying most of their Covid materiel competitively whereas the UK was not. The UK’s massive and sustained purchasing vis-a-vis its peers is evident here too.

Summary: the search for an explanation continues

To summarise: 

1) The EU data comparison is valid. Medical procurement in the key Covid categories that we looked at are covered by, and widely reported in, TED as we have evidenced.  

2) The UK was not an outlier before Covid: it looks very comparable to its European peers in these categories.  

3) It is only after the pandemic started that the pattern changes significantly with many more awards for larger amounts for longer by the UK compared to its peers.  

Mr. Hancock is incorrect and the comparison stands. Interestingly, this pattern of runaway buying in 2020 was confirmed in other testimony that we heard last week at the Inquiry. Lord Agnew who was in charge of procurement policy at the time explained that “it was over-ordering by an order of magnitude because we didn’t have the data” and that “we had not got a clue what we had when we were ordering more”. He added that “the fault was that too many were direct awards … and we took too long to pivot to competitive tenders once the initial panic subsided." 

So let’s hope the Inquiry continues to press on to find out why the UK bought so much more compared to its peers and had such high rates of failure and waste.

 1: We considered the following CPV codes:

• 33140000 Medical consumables - we considered all CPV codes under this class not covered in other categories

• 33100000 Medical equipments - we considered all CPV codes under this class not covered in other categories

• 35113400 Protective and safety clothing + 18143000 Protective gear

• 33000000 Medical equipments, pharmaceuticals and personal care products - we considered all CPV codes under this class not covered in other categories

• 33741300 Hand sanitizer + 33741100 Hand cleaner + 33631600 Antiseptics and disinfectants

• 33190000 Miscellaneous medical devices and products