Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

I continue to discuss Operation Sophia with my European counterparts, and we have agreed to deploy an additional vessel, a Royal Navy ship, as part of that. We are working with the new Libyan Government —I recently spoke to the Defence Minister there—to support them in their fight against Daesh. It is vital that we continue to work with other allies along the coastline, and we are extending the counter-IED training that we provide to Tunisian forces for a further year.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

13. What steps he is taking to increase the proportion of defence spending that goes to small firms.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Mr Philip Dunne)]

Small businesses are a crucial engine for growth and innovation in this country, and we are determined that they should play an increasing part in supplying defence. We are committed to achieving 25% of our procurement spend with small and medium-sized enterprises by 2020, and that target is 10% higher than the one set during the last Parliament. We recently refreshed our SME policy to show how we will work to achieve that.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

What steps is my hon. Friend taking to make it as simple as possible for small firms to benefit from this increased spend?

[Mr Dunne]

We have already appointed a new network of supply chain advocates to provide a named point of contact for potential suppliers. We are providing a new online tool for suppliers to highlight opportunities, and we are simplifying our standard terms and conditions.