Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Emma Hardy Excerpts
Wednesday 16th May 2018

(6 years, 2 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Oliver Dowden Portrait Oliver Dowden
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I will, of course, undertake to read my hon. Friend’s report and will respond directly. It is precisely for this reason of getting good value for the taxpayer that we established the Crown Commercial Service to increase savings for the taxpayer by centralising buying requirements for common goods and services such as photocopier paper.

Emma Hardy Portrait Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
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FCC Environment has public sector contracts across 160 constituencies, yet it refuses to pay its workers sick pay. The workers in Hull have been out on strike for more than 30 days after one of their colleagues developed cancer and had to return to work after a month because he could not afford to be off work. Will the Minister please look at reforming the rules for procurement so that no companies can exploit workers in this way and not pay them the basic right of sick pay?

Oliver Dowden Portrait Oliver Dowden
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Clearly, all suppliers are subject to the general law of the land, which covers many of those points. In addition, we have introduced a supplier code of conduct, which looks exactly at those corporate responsibility points, and we review it continuously, and we will review it with such cases in mind.