Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Esther McVey and Oliver Letwin(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Letwin
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.
