Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Esther McVey Excerpts
Wednesday 14th December 2011

(12 years, 11 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Oliver Letwin Portrait Mr Letwin
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Yes, 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.

John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
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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.