UK government wasted nearly £10bn on unused Covid PPE, figures show

Accounts reveal 9.9bn of the 13.6bn spent on PPE during pandemic has been written off

Ministers have been accused of throwing away taxpayers' money as if it were confetti" after official figures revealed that the government wasted nearly 10bn on defective or unusable personal protective equipment during the Covid crisis.

Annual accounts for the Department of Health and Social Care published on Thursday show that nearly three-quarters of the money it spent on PPE during the pandemic has been written off.