We have not just had the infamous Baroness Mone scandal; at the time, there were reports of a hedge fund in Mauritius that got a £250 million contract for face masks that could not be used and a jeweller in Florida that got a multimillion-pound contract for gowns that could not be used. The Government had to incinerate billions of pounds-worth of faulty personal protective equipment. That is taxpayers’ money literally going up in smoke. In the pandemic the then Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, told me at the Dispatch Box

“where a contract is not delivered against, we do not intend to pay taxpayers’ money”.—[Official Report, 23 February 2021;
Vol. 689, c. 758.]

But taxpayers’ money was spent, wasn’t it? Why was that promise not met?