Esther McVey
Main Page: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)Department Debates - View all Esther McVey's debates with the Cabinet Office
(12 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberYes, I can, and I refer again to something that my right hon. Friend was saying. Recently, the Government’s very large domestic travel contract was let—the domestic side alone amounts to £1.1 billion a year of travel—and one might have expected it to go to a very large firm, but, because of the way in which my right hon. Friend structured it, it went to Redfern Travel, a company with 33 employees. It is a small or, at any rate and by anyone’s definition, only a medium-scale enterprise, and it was able to win the contract. The managing director said:
“The award of this contract…clearly demonstrates that…any SME can not only bid for major Government contracts, but also meet the challenging requirements”,
so I think that that is a very good test case.
Order. It is normally a great pleasure to hear from the hon. Lady, but the Wirral is a little distance away from Calder Valley, to which this question exclusively relates. We will save her up for another occasion.