Chloe Smith
Main Page: Chloe Smith (Conservative - Norwich North)Department Debates - View all Chloe Smith's debates with the Cabinet Office
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
12. What steps he is taking to open up central Government Departments to partnerships with small and medium-sized enterprises.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)
It is this Government’s policy to dismantle the barriers facing small and medium-sized companies to ensure that they can compete for contracts on a level playing field and grow. I refer the House to the letter I sent last month to all hon. Members, in which I set out some of the progress we have made and the further steps we will be taking to ensure that Departments continue to increase their spend with small companies.
Nick de Bois
I am grateful for the Minister’s answer and I welcome her reforms to Government procurement processes, which are a marked improvement on the previous Government’s efforts. However, will she share her Department’s best practice with local government, which is still issuing cumbersome and complicated tenders that are excluding so many SMEs from competing for business because of the amount of time that they have to put into them?
Miss Smith
I welcome that support from my hon. Friend, who is extremely active on these matters in trying to secure more jobs, particularly in his constituency. He rightly says that we have a clear job, which we will do: to transfer the successful procurement reforms that we have made in central Government to the wider public sector. We are accepting the recommendations made in Lord Young’s “Growing Your Business” report, which deals with the complexity, cost and inconsistency that can face small businesses in the wider public sector.
Julian Sturdy
The Minister will doubtless be aware of the success of Redfern Travel, from my constituency, which saw off French competition to win a billion-pound contract. How will the Government’s reforms help other British businesses to achieve similar David and Goliath-type victories over multinational corporations?
Miss Smith
I also welcome my hon. Friend’s commitment in his constituency to SMEs. I note that support has come from, for example, the Federation of Small Businesses, which says that Government policy continues to move in the right direction in this area. The forthcoming consultation, to which I referred, will make that public sector procurement market more accessible to SMEs, by requiring all contracts over £10,000 to be listed in one place—on Contracts Finder, for example. I also draw his attention to an SME friendliness tool that we published in June. I urge all colleagues to use that to hold contractors in their constituencies to account.
Mrs Glindon
What is the Minister doing to promote the use of the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 to help small businesses and social enterprises to win public sector contracts?
Miss Smith
I am glad that the hon. Lady has raised that point and she will know that we have asked my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) to act as an ambassador on this matter; it is very important. The message that we need to get through to contractors, who are of course the ones making such arrangements, is that they must have regard to the taxpayer and value for money at all times, but that other such issues might also be used to benefit those for whom they are contracting.
Mr Sheerman
Is the Minister not aware that the truth is that the Government are becoming more and more dependent on big companies—private sector companies such as G4S, Serco and Capita? Is she aware that a recent Fujitsu-sponsored poll of small and medium-sized enterprises showed that 26% find it more difficult to get contracts with the Government and that 6% think that it is easier?
Miss Smith
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s focus on this matter. He will welcome our review on some of the companies he has named, but it is most important to say that the Government are on track to deliver our aspiration of awarding 25% of central Government business to SMEs by 2015. We look for that directly and through the supply chain, and that is what helps us to procure for growth in this country.
Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)
In a recent speech at an event called “Transforming Technology Procurement through SMEs”, the Minister for the Cabinet Office said with typical understatement that the Government were
“entering a new world for government technology procurement”
and launching
“radical reforms to increase opportunities for SME suppliers”.
Why, then, according to freedom of information requests submitted by ComputerWeekly, has only 0.52% of all the IT procurement spend for the Government’s beleaguered universal credit programme gone to SMEs?
Miss Smith
It continues to be pretty rich for the hon. Gentleman to come to this Dispatch Box when he and his Government did absolutely nothing to count the spend with SMEs when they were in government.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
5. What assessment he has made of the work of the National Citizen Service.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
10. What recent assessment he has made of implementation of the Government’s procurement reforms.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)
As a result of the Government’s procurement reforms, we have made the way we do business more competitive, more transparent, better value and far simpler than ever before.
Miss Smith
The hon. Gentleman will find that the contracts he might be alluding to were all let by the previous Government, and I have already informed the House of the progress we are making in shifting Government business to SMEs.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
The Public Administration Committee’s report on procurement stated that the Cabinet Office should work with all Departments, and especially the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, to ensure that UK business is prepared to deliver UK contracts. What progress is being made on that?
Miss Smith
The most important thing to remind the House about in that regard is how the pipelines we have published show British firms, and indeed firms around the world that have a good piece of value to offer the British taxpayer, where they can find contracts.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
Britain has a massive trade deficit with the European Union, and it could be reduced if British companies were employed to provide for the Government. How much are the Government doing to ensure that public organisations purchase from British companies, rather than those from the continent of Europe?
Miss Smith
I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is seeking to make. What we seek is best value for the British taxpayer and to use the British Government’s procurement spend to allow for growth as far as possible in this country. We are of course bound by certain EU procurement rules, with which I am sure he is very familiar. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There are a lot of very noisy conversations taking place, including on the Opposition Benches, but I am sure that Members will wish to be quiet to hear Stella Creasy.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
While there are now rumours of significant concessions, Ministers still need to explain why charities were not consulted before the lobbying Bill was published. Why could not even the junior Minister be bothered to pick up the phone to the Royal British Legion, cancer charities or the National Council for Voluntary Organisations before producing a Bill that will have such a chilling impact on the work of charities?
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)
The hon. Gentleman knows very well that we spent a significant amount of time on this in the House yesterday and that there is more opportunity to discuss it next week. He will also know that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I met charity leaders on Monday and will continue to do so. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There is still far too much noise in the Chamber. I understand the general excitement, which I am sure is in anticipation of the question from Mr Henry Smith.
Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)
T2. The Minister’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) was to say that she had met charities on Monday. What was she doing all summer while the ramifications of this dog’s breakfast of a lobbying Bill became clear?
Miss Chloe Smith
We were doing more over the summer to introduce a statutory register of lobbyists than Labour ever did.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Does the Minister share my concern that too many charities spend too much money on lobbying and on inflation-busting pay rises and bonuses for the boardroom, and that they ought to be concentrating more on the front line of helping people in need?
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
T4. Leading human rights lawyer Helen Mountfield QC said this week that the transparency of lobbying Bill will put“small organisations and their trustees/directors in fear of criminal penalty if they speak out on matters of public interest and concern.”Will the Minister finally wake up and do something about this appalling Bill?
Miss Chloe Smith
That leading QC’s advice in fact bears out that those concerns exist under the current legislation. Furthermore, we see a great show of displacement activity among Labour Members because they are afraid of some of their friends coming under scrutiny.
Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)
T5. Is it not the case that the transparency of lobbying Bill would not stop lobbyist Lynton Crosby advising the Prime Minister on tobacco policy, but could stop an organisation such as Cancer Research UK campaigning about it? Is that acceptable?
Miss Smith
We explained at length yesterday that the Bill would not affect or change the law concerning the political activity of charitable organisations in the sense of when they support, promote or procure electoral outcomes. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has answered the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s question too many times to count.
Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)
T6. But the Government’s lobbying proposals would apply only to third-party consultant lobbyists, who make up a small minority of the industry. The Association of Professional Political Consultants estimates that this means that only 1% of ministerial meetings organised by lobbyists will be captured by the legislation. Does the Minister agree with Iain Anderson of the APPC that this Bill is so bad that it“would be difficult to produce a worse Bill”?
Miss Smith
If that was an attempt at lobbying it was rather too long-winded. The point is that we are doing more to introduce a statutory register than Labour ever did, and we are clearing up a specific transparency gap that arises, because we are the most transparent Government ever and I think the hon. Gentleman knows it.