Bob Blackman
Main Page: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)Department Debates - View all Bob Blackman's debates with the Cabinet Office
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Bob Blackman Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Oliver Dowden
I take this opportunity to reassure the hon. Lady and the House that I am most certainly not in the dark about the position of our strategic suppliers. Almost every week I meet the senior officials she referred to in order to understand the situations of our strategic suppliers. Moreover, I regularly meet the Crown Representatives who, as she knows, are responsible for managing the strategic suppliers on behalf of the Government.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for the answers that he is giving. Clearly, there are big advantages both on costs and quality of service provided by outsourcing, but does he not agree that some of these conglomerates that provide a whole spread of different outsourced services are disadvantaging the small and medium-sized enterprises that could otherwise gain these contracts directly? Clearly, with this restructuring, they could miss out. When restructuring happens, someone loses out. Should the Government not now be considering a wider spread of smaller contracts so that SMEs can properly compete against the conglomerates?
Oliver Dowden
As ever, my hon. Friend raises a very important point. He is absolutely right that, post-Carillion, we must ensure that we strengthen the supply chain. One of the ways in which we do that is through increased diversity, particularly by enabling small and medium-sized enterprises to bid and win Government contracts. That is why we have reduced complex pre-qualification questionnaires, why we have set a very demanding target of 33% of all contracts going to SMEs and why, in November, I announced proposals to ensure that strategic suppliers who did not pay their subcontractors on time would face exclusion from winning Government contracts.