Boris Johnson was accused of a “lax attitude” towards spending public cash after it emerged the government has blown £130m on PR consultants.
Labour leader Keir Starmer took the prime minister to task in the Commons over the hefty sum spent on media management since January, and said spending on some PPE had been wasted.
The government has repeatedly come under attack for its spend on consultants during the pandemic.
Some PR firms used by the government have proved to have links to senior Tories, and Labour said the £130m doesn’t include existing spend on special advisers and civil servants working on government communications.
“This is not the prime minister’s money, it is taxpayers’ money,” Starmer said during prime minister’s questions. “The prime minister may well not know the value of the pound in his pocket, but the people who send us here do and they expect us to spend it wisely.”
Calling for Johnson to boost the comparatively small £6m package for armed forces charities, Starmer said the £670,000 spent on PR by the government’s taskforce, reported earlier this week, was “the tip of the iceberg”.
He said: “The chancellor’s package for forces charities was just £6m during this pandemic and that’s just not sufficient. Can I ask the prime minister to reconsider that support on their behalf?
“Because at the same time, we’ve all seen this weekend that the government can find £670,000 for PR consultants. That’s the tip of the iceberg.
“New research today shows that the government has spent at least £130million of taxpayers’ money on PR companies and that’s this year alone.
“Does the prime minister think that that’s a reasonable use of taxpayers’ money?”
Johnson attempted to defend the huge spend by saying some of it was targeted at countering anti-vaxxer disinformation campaigns amid the Covid-19 crisis.
He said: “I think he’s referring to the vaccines taskforce and after days in which the Labour Party has attacked the vaccines taskforce I think it might be in order for him to pay tribute to them for securing 40m doses.
“And by the way, the expenditure to which he refers was to help raise awareness of vaccines, to fight the anti-vaxxers and to persuade the people of this country – 300,000 – to take part in trials without which we can’t have vaccines.
“So I think he should take it back.”
Starmer went on to target government spending on PPE contracts.
Giving the example of a company awarded “about £150m” to produce face masks, Starmer said the government has “a lax attitude to taxpayers’ money”, adding: “How many usable face masks were actually provided to NHS workers on the front line under that contract?”
Johnson replied: “We’re in the middle of a global pandemic in which this government has so far secured and delivered 32bnitems of personal protective equipment.
“And yes, it is absolutely correct that it has been necessary to work with the private sector, with manufacturers who provide equipment such as this – some of them more effectively than others.
“But it is the private sector that in the end makes the PPE, it is the private sector that provides the testing equipment, and it is the private sector that, no matter how much the party opposite may hate them, it is the private sector that provides the vaccines and the scientific breakthroughs.”