Government Procurement Strategy

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Chris Ward]

I basically agree with the hon. Lady’s assessment of the procurement system and how it does not do what it should do. As I say, £400 billion of taxpayer money is being spent. We need to ensure, as far as we can, that every pound that is spent supports British industry, supports jobs and delivers fairness, and it must also support SMEs. The Procurement Act made progress towards helping SMEs, but it does not go far enough. It is not the job of this Government to defend the status quo; it is the job of this Government to change it, so we will do that. I will come back to her on the specific point about payment thresholds.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham), my Staffordshire neighbour, on securing this urgent question. The Government are taking the right steps towards this procurement strategy, but there is a lot more that could be done if they wanted to truly buy British, back British and build British. That could start with the Government Car Service. The Minister will know from the answers that he has sent to my written parliamentary questions that one third of the Government Car Service uses foreign cars, and that police services in this country use foreign-made cars. He will know that we import bricks to build houses that are paid for by Homes England, which is funded by taxpayers. Will he look at the easy wins that he can make by looking at how the Government are a consumer of products? He could reorientate that spend towards British companies this week.

[Chris Ward]

There are few greater champions of the buy British agenda than my hon. Friend, although there are a few of us in the Government as well. We are trying to make progress on that agenda. What I am setting out today is what I can do with Government guidance and by using the exemptions that already exist in national security restrictions. We have not jumped to legislation; I am trying to use the powers that I have. The point that he is making is about a bigger agenda that I hope we can get to, in order to drive forward more support for British industry. This is the start of it but it is not the end, and we will work with him on doing that.

Antisemitic Attacks

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Monday 20th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising those points. He is absolutely right that this abhorrent targeting has no place in our society—not now, not ever. Although I completely accept his characterisation of many British Jews currently feeling fearful, it is important to make the point—as I saw myself this morning—that the resilience and enduring decency of our Jewish communities, looking out for each other and working with a range of other community groups, are incredibly inspiring and impressive to see. We should not lose sight of that; that is a real light in a moment of darkness. To answer his question directly, of course I will be happy to meet him and the families.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

To follow the point of the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), too many aspects of antisemitism are being normalised in this country. That does not start with attacks on places of worship or on clearly Jewish buildings; it starts with the words and actions of individuals who seek to demonise Jewish people in day-to-day language. It starts with the deputy leader of the Green party publishing a list of British Jews and calling them part of the Israeli lobby, or putting out a list of British-Jewish donors and saying they are part of the Israeli lobby. It starts with the soft approach of demonising a small group of people because of their faith, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (David Taylor) said. What action is being taken across Government, not to deal with the instances after the event, but to tackle the root cause—that scourge of virulent racism—that is being normalised by too many people who ought to know better?

[Dan Jarvis]

I hope that across the House there is a shared endeavour and an absolute determination to ensure that this does not become the new normal that we have to endure. None of us wants that to be the case. My hon. Friend is right to raise the importance of tackling the root causes, and hopefully he will have heard my earlier answers, but he is also right to make the point that this work needs to be properly co-ordinated across Government. Although there is an important role for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in leading this work, it needs a response from the whole system and the whole of Government. I assure him that through the Home Office and the Cabinet Office, and with other supporting Departments, we make sure that that is the case.

Lord Mandelson

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Well, I hope that the House always takes me at my word when I say that I will take these matters away with me.

The Cabinet Secretary will be taking independent advice on the decisions he takes through this process, and he intends for that advice to take two forms. First, he will have the advice of an independent KC throughout the process, and secondly, there will be scrutiny of his approach by the ISC. I hope that gives the House the necessary reassurance.

I have some past experience of drafting Humble Addresses on different matters in this House myself. The Opposition motion is clearly extensive—I think the House recognises that—but it is imperative that the Government protect sensitive information that could damage national security or relations with our international partners.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I remember the Humble Addresses that were tabled in this place during the Brexit years. The Minister will know that, in opposition, we never felt the need to put national security or international relations on the face of a motion itself, because that was an implied protection.

Can I ask the Minister two things? First, he helpfully said that the ISC will be involved in scrutiny of the process. Does he mean the process by which the Cabinet Secretary looks at documents, or will the ISC itself be able to see documents? Secondly, I think we all understand what the Minister means by “national security”, but could he tell us what he means by “international relations”? It is quite a broad term, so I would welcome some clarity.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I think my hon. Friend and I have similar memories of that particular Parliament. To give an example, in the motion relating to Lebedev, we included the words,

“in a form which may contain redactions, but such redactions shall be solely for the purposes of national security.”

When I was involved in drafting Humble Addresses, I was very precise about that.

China and Japan

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The Conservatives crashed the economy, so lectures from them on the economy are not welcome. As I said in my statement, national security is at the heart of our approach to China, as it is to every issue that we take up. It is quite possible to have a discussion about the opportunities available to our country while also safeguarding our national security. That is what we are doing in a grown-up, mature way.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), the anti-dumping measures that we impose on Chinese goods coming into this country protect hundreds of jobs in Stoke-on-Trent, whether in the ceramic tableware manufacturing sector or in the retreading of tyres at the Michelin factory. Can the Prime Minister give a guarantee that as the economic work with China continues, those measures will not be junked? The anti-dumping measures are not abstract: they protect hundreds of jobs in the part of the country that most needs them.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue and I can give him that assurance. I know how much it matters, and that is the approach we have taken.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

When the Government finally bring the in-sourcing process to fruition, they will have a lot more purchasing power over the services they buy and the goods they procure. Can the Minister give the House a categorical assurance that every penny of British taxpayers’ money spent using these new powers will be spent with British companies and British industries, so that we are supporting our own British economy?

[Chris Ward]

That is one of the Government’s goals. Prime Minister Carney said he thought that Canada should be Canada’s best customer. I think that Britain should be Britain’s best customer, and we should work towards that. As I say, we will publish the proposals soon and I hope that we can make progress quickly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I didn’t realise you had changed your name to Gareth Snell, Mr Jopp. I know you are due to be called, but I have to take two questions from each side to get the political balance.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

When the Minister rolls out digital ID, will he give serious thought to engaging organisations like conformity assessment bodies and the public libraries network so that those who need the ID can get help at the point of application?

[Ian Murray]

One of the aspects of digital ID that is under-debated in this House is the fact that those who are furthest away geographically and economically from digital inclusion will benefit the most from it. That is why we are investing millions of pounds into the digital inclusion programme, which has just announced 80 projects, including many in my hon. Friend’s constituency. We have to make sure that the entirety of the public, wherever they are in the country and whichever economic situation they are in, benefit from digital government and better public services.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jo Stevens]

The Government have absolutely nothing to hide.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

2. What recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on increasing economic growth in Wales.

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[The Secretary of State for Wales (Jo Stevens)]

Growth is the No. 1 mission of this Government. We are creating tens of thousands of jobs in every corner of Wales, including through billions of pounds of investment in nuclear power in Anglesey, two AI growth zones, a defence growth deal, two freeports and two investment zones, which will deliver further economic growth to Wales.

[Gareth Snell]

Because of decisions made by the UK Labour Government, the minimum wage and the living wage will increase, boosting wages for thousands of workers across this country, including 160,000 people in Wales. Could the Secretary of State set out what impact she thinks this critical announcement will have on the economy and people of Wales?

[Jo Stevens]

From April, a full-time worker on the national living wage will see their annual pay rise by £900, on top of the £1,400 increase that we announced in the previous Budget, and 18 to 20-year-olds working full time on the national minimum wage will get an annual increase of £1,500, which, when added to last year’s increase of £2,500, means £4,000 extra a year. This Labour Government are supporting the lowest-paid workers across the country, with 2.7 million workers in Stoke-on-Trent Central, Cardiff East and every other constituency directly benefiting.

Government Procurement

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

When I had the privilege of leading a council in north Staffordshire, we tried to invent a model that allowed us to use the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 in exactly the way that my hon. Friend describes, so that when we were working with a registered social landlord on house building, for example, we could stipulate that a proportion of the bricks should come from the local area and that, in turn, apprentices would be working in those factories. I found that it was a matter of political will, but also that procurement officers sometimes struggled to understand how to quantify social value. Does my hon. Friend have a solution—one that the Minister could then cascade through Government—for working out the social value that we are all seeking to achieve?

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend gives an apposite example of some of the problems that can arise. I will not be so bold as to say I have the solution, but I will at least try to set out the problem with clarity, so that the Minister can ensure that his officers are able to provide a proper solution.

The model details eight types of social value, each with several areas of activity. Those cover fair work, training to address skills gaps, support for small business and community business, action for sustainability, crime reduction, overcoming barriers to work, and support for health and wellbeing. Contracting authorities can choose which of those are relevant to a particular procurement, but one element is mandatory: where a type of social value is selected, the standard reporting metric set out in the model must then be used for monitoring and reporting. Herein lies the problem. These monitoring requirements will influence how social value requirements are described in tenders and contracts. A contracting authority using a targeted recruitment and training toolkit would struggle to comply with the standard reporting metrics, as they would not relate to the tried and tested specifications that are used.

Many of the options in the social value model are related to the jobs, skills and SME opportunities that are contemplated in the national procurement policy statement. However, the model appears to be expecting procurement officials to create tender requirements whereby potential contractors will identify labour shortages and community needs and then propose ways to fill these gaps in the delivery of the contract. That may be possible with a services contract, but it is really not workable in a large, complex building and infrastructure development.

What are my concerns? First, apart from the way outputs are recorded, no specific elements of the social value model are mandatory for contracting authorities, so the provision of opportunities for people who are currently disadvantaged in the labour market is not mandatory. Contracting authorities can choose to focus on other activities contained in the social value model.

Secondly, the approach for every social value option is to require bidders for the contract to provide a comprehensive method statement at tender stage. That puts a heavy burden on potential contractors and is a huge barrier to small businesses bidding for contracts, which is perverse when breaking down barriers to SME engagement is one of the Procurement Act principles and a core mission of the Government.

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[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Ward)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) for securing the debate. He raised a number of important and specific points, which I will answer shortly. If he will permit me, I will briefly set out the Government’s approach to procurement, not least because it is the first opportunity that I have had to do so as the Minister responsible for procurement.

I want to emphasise that this Government and I see public procurement as an incredibly important vehicle for social and economic change, and not in the slightest bit boring. Public procurement accounts for one in every three pounds of public spending, totalling some £400 billion a year, so it is a huge opportunity and responsibility to make sure that that budget is spent wisely, and that it does everything possible to boost British jobs and growth, and delivers opportunity and fairness across the country.

[Gareth Snell]

To follow up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger) about the great announcement that police forces will be able to buy things locally, when will the Minister extend that to ensure that British police services are buying British cars, that the Government car service is buying British cars, that the Motability scheme is using British cars and that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office fleet is using British cars? All those currently use foreign-made vehicles, which is not using British taxpayers’ money for British jobs.

[Chris Ward]

As my hon. Friend knows, the Budget announced progress on that with the Motability scheme, and the Chancellor has spoken many times about the need to buy British. Hopefully, we can start to roll that out and make much greater progress on it. I am glad he welcomes today’s announcement, which I will come to, but whether we are talking about British steel, British shipbuilding, wind farms or, as we saw in the Budget last week, driving innovation and spurring investment across the UK, we need to do far more to ensure that we buy British.

That is also why, just this week, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger) said, we have announced measures to allow local authorities to reserve contracts for suppliers in their area. That will help to keep more than £1 billion of potential spend in local communities, and it will benefit small and local firms considerably. This flows from our decision earlier this year to publish a national procurement policy statement that required contracting authorities to consider wider objectives, such as creating local skills, jobs and opportunities, and to maximise procurement spend with small and medium-sized enterprises.

Over the summer, the Government consulted on a range of proposals to go further, including broadening the definition of national security to economic security, allowing greater support for critical UK industries, such as shipbuilding or steel, and plans to introduce a public interest test to support and help deliver a wave of insourcing. The proposals also included further expanding support and opportunities for SMEs, including tackling the scourge of late payments, and, to go to the thrust of the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West, reforming and tightening the definition of social value to see it delivered much more effectively.

We are working through the consultation responses. I have met with a number of businesses, unions and contracting authorities to discuss this further, and we are drawing up plans to bring forward legislation in the next session for a new procurement Bill to deliver these changes.

As the Minister responsible for procurement, I have two central goals. The first is to make the current procurement regime less bureaucratic and burdensome—streamlining the processes wherever possible, reducing unnecessary form-filling and, in particular, making it easier and fairer for SMEs. The second is to ensure that every pound of that £400 billion procurement budget is used to support British jobs, British industries and growth across the country. Within that second goal lies the question of social value, which my hon. Friend raised. I am sympathetic to a number of points he made, and I have discussed particularly with SMEs recently how we can do more in this space.

As my hon. Friend said, the social value model was introduced in 2019 and refreshed in 2025. It is not currently mandatory for all contracting authorities or contracts, and it is applicable only to central Government Departments, executive agencies and non-departmental bodies. As I said, we are consulting on changes that will open up procurement on social value grounds much more widely.

As my hon. Friend will know, the purpose of the social value model in the guidance, which has been in place for only a couple of months, is to ensure that contracting authorities can reward suppliers for more than simply best price, so that they can reflect quality jobs, support people into work and do training opportunities. For example, if we want to build a new road or a new infrastructure project, the contracting authority can consider more than price; it can consider what it does to help the community.

I agree with my hon. Friend that the definition of “community” needs to be improved and clarified. We need to be much clearer about community voice and view on this issue; again, I want to try to bring that forward in the legislation. It is early days to assess the impact of those measures, but I take on board the points that he raises regarding flaws in the process and the need to go further. As I said, that chimes with some of the points that he made.

I am particularly conscious that social value does not become just a tick-box exercise, particularly where large companies can employ more people and consultants and win contracts simply by being able to fill in a form better. That is absolutely not what social value is or should be, and it will absolutely not be what this Government allow to happen when we bring forward legislation in the next Session.

We also need to look at the threshold at which social value requirements apply so that we can ensure that SMEs and community groups have a much more level playing field and we can open up the requirement much more. Again, that will be a part of the consultation process.

My hon. Friend asks about the targeted recruitment and training approach for large contracts, and again he made some very good points. I agree that it needs to be a tool to provide local communities with the skills they need. At the moment, the social value model provides some flexibility for contracting authorities in that regard—for example, things such as skills gaps or local problems in the area—but we can do more. I will consider the points he raises and get back to him, and I thank him for those.

My hon. Friend also asks whether all vacancies for works contracts are on the DWP “Find a job” website, and the answer is yes. As of February 2025, there has been a requirement for all Government suppliers to advertise jobs relating to Government contracts in the local jobcentre. As I am sure he can recognise, the aim is to ensure that local people have every opportunity to access quality jobs, but again I will look at the points he makes about how that is playing out and if we can improve it.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned Northern Ireland and how we can do more to support procurement there. I am talking with the Northern Ireland Executive about how we can work together and try to ensure that new legislation that we bring forward in the next Session can apply in Northern Ireland, should they wish it to do so.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West for securing this important debate. Procurement is one of the most important levers we have in government, and we should have far more debates in this House on it. Procurement matters to Government, to taxpayers, to British business, to workers and to people across the country. The best way that we can support UK businesses further to deliver growth is to go further and faster on reforming public procurement. That is what this Government have already done, and that is what we will continue to do. We will deliver a simpler, less bureaucratic process, better value for taxpayers and more opportunities for local jobs and skills in all parts of the country, and we will bring that forward soon. I thank again my hon. Friend and other Members for contributing to the debate tonight.

Question put and agreed to.

Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the painstaking, significant work he did when he was Paymaster General. The reference to Sir Tyrone Urch and his report is apposite, because I asked Sir Tyrone to look at the workings of IBCA—to look, practically, at what barriers are still there to delivering compensation quickly. Of course, Sir Tyrone’s first recommendation was around policy stability. As I said when I was before the inquiry in May, we would not want to be making changes to the scheme that were detrimental to the ability to deliver the compensation quickly. That is something that I think is really important going forward.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate and thank the Minister for his work on this; I know how much of his time it is taking. Further to the points made by my hon. Friends the Members for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford) and for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), and the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), there is a perversity in the people who were failed by the state potentially being asked to repay 40% of their compensation to the same state that failed them.

The Minister has clearly set out that that is in line with policy; is he willing to stand at that Dispatch Box and state, categorically, that that is fair? If he cannot say that it is fair, will he at least undertake to again raise this issue with the Treasury, so that those people who were failed by the state are not then penalised by the state?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend and a number of Members have made that case powerfully. I will say to the House that they can be assured that I look at all aspects of this scheme and test whether they are fair, and I think we can see, across parties, the strength of feeling on this today.

China Spying Case

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) touched on several relevant points. There was a time in this House when a Member coming under attack and finding themselves on the wrong end of something was a moment of unification for us, and we would come together to find a way forward collectively. It should be of great regret to us all that following the events that happened to the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) and the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat), we are throwing political rocks at one another about meetings that may or may not have happened over the last six or seven years. I do not know the hon. Lady, but I know the right hon. Gentleman. He is a gentleman of the utmost standing and principle, and I cannot imagine the horrors that he has been through and how much they have disrupted his life. We should keep that at the forefront of our minds in this debate.

We have had a complex relationship with China for the past decade. I cannot be the only one who is old enough to remember the pictures of the President of China pulling pints in the Plough with the former Prime Minister, who was subsequently the Foreign Secretary when some of what we are talking about was happening. We have not had a consistent approach to China publicly. I say “publicly”, because the evidence we have heard from various Opposition Members this evening makes it quite clear that officials in the last Government were naming China as a threat. They were using that terminology, but unfortunately the political faces of that Administration were not.

I will not get into the rights and wrongs of that, but it is clear that there has been inconsistency in the language applied to China throughout this period. If I were more legally minded, I would say that that may have led to the current situation, in which the CPS is saying one thing and the DNSA is saying something else, and we are getting the interpretation of an illustrious former Attorney General, the right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and Tavistock (Sir Geoffrey Cox). By the way, I remember the debate in November 2017 when we argued for a Humble Address. Many Conservative Members said that it was a terrible idea to publish Government information, and it could never be done because it would undermine that information. They said that in the future, they might ask for such information and we would say no, and we are clearly at that point today.

We all invest a lot of time and energy into this job, and into our staff. We are at the mercy of the vetting services to make sure that the staff who work for us are looked into properly. We just do not know, for instance, whether operatives from other hostile states are active in staffing units. We can pretend we do, but we honestly do not. I hope we will get some answers from the Minister about how we have got to this point, but what I want to understand is how will we make sure that the same thing does not happen again.

How will we get to a point, in this Parliament, where we can be sure that every Member of Parliament—regardless of which political party they come from, the position they hold, their standing or their length of service—is free from such political interference, oversight and spying? How can we ensure that no more Members are sanctioned, as the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green was? He has talked eloquently to the House on numerous occasions about the disruption to his life. For us to do our job properly, we must have confidence in the people around us and the advice we receive from officials, and we have to be certain that the processes that are in place to keep us safe are doing their job.

Ultimately, we all come here to do a job, and to do it well. We are only human, and we ought to hold at the forefront of our minds the fact that mistakes have been made—I think we would all agree on that; I do not think anyone can say, hand on heart, that everything has gone perfectly up to this point—but the key thing is how we learn from that and prevent it from happening again. That, Madam Deputy Speaker, is where I will draw my remarks to a conclusion.