Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick
Main Page: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick's debates with the Cabinet Office
(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Maude
We have two objectives here. We want to buy as efficiently as we can, which, in many cases, means using the scale of Government to aggregate volume and drive down prices. In many areas of procurement of commodities, goods and services, we are able to get the price advantages of aggregation but, none the less, involve SMEs much more in the process. We have a commitment and an aspiration to increase the value of SME business to 25% of the total.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
The Minister will be aware that public procurement guidelines in Northern Ireland are set by EU directives and UK regulations. Will the Minister, therefore, give a commitment to work alongside the Northern Ireland Executive and not to turn his back on Europe in negotiations to tackle the issues of over-complexity, cost and red tape, as those are issues that are affecting local business?
Mr Maude
As I said, we are actively engaged with the European Commission in supporting the good work that it is undertaking to streamline procurement processes, but we need to ensure—and I hope that the hon. Lady will do this—that the Administration in Northern Ireland do not overimplement the directives because we are finding that central Government and the wider public sector in Great Britain tend to do that.