Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

10. What steps the Government is taking to increase opportunities for small businesses to bid for Government contracts.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

15. What steps the Government is taking to increase opportunities for small businesses to bid for Government contracts.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Steve Barclay)]

We are increasing opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises by transparently publishing contract pipelines and simplifying bidding processes. These measures are working, and the latest central Government procurement figures for 2019-20 show that £15.5 billion was paid to small and medium-sized businesses to help to deliver essential services for UK taxpayers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Barclay]

I am extremely keen to work with my hon. Friend on this issue. He raises an important point and I am happy to meet him as a matter of urgency to take this forward. It is worth reminding the House that there was not specific funding for this; the memorandum of understanding with the South West Food Hub did not include specific funding. The CCS had been using its existing headcount and funding to establish a commercial solution for food, but the wider point he raises is a very valid one and I am extremely keen to explore it with him.

[Bob Blackman]

Small businesses experience frustration in getting on to the list of both local government and national Government contracts, so I welcome the light-touch approach that my right hon. Friend is taking. Will he assure me that taxpayers will also benefit from the transparency, so that everyone can see what contracts are being made, how much they are for and what the benefit is in the long term?

[Steve Barclay]

My hon. Friend raises an extremely valid and important point: simpler and more transparent processes, ones that are more accessible to the innovation of our small and medium-sized enterprises community, in turn drive far better value for money. As constituency MPs, we all see that, across the House, with our SMEs. This is very much at the heart of what the Minister for the Cabinet Office and colleagues are driving through with the procurement legislation that is planned, and it is exactly the point that we want to take forward.