Oral Answers to Questions

Georgia Gould Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)]

14. What steps he is taking to reform public procurement.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Georgia Gould)]

I spent the last few weeks meeting small and medium-sized enterprises, voluntary and community sector organisations, wider businesses and contracting authorities to discuss how we ensure that the approximately £300 billion that is spent each year on public sector procurement delivers for our communities. With this Government, procurement will deliver value for money, better public services and our national missions. The Procurement Act 2023 commences in February 2025, creating a simpler, more flexible procurement system under- pinned by a new mission-led national procurement policy statement to ensure that public procurement delivers on the Government’s missions.

[Katrina Murray]

Small businesses are a crucial part of the economy in Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch. There are huge opportunities to help them further, and one way of doing that is to work across the public sector and with local authorities—in my case, North Lanarkshire and East Dunbartonshire councils, with contracts as big as the redevelopment of Cumbernauld town centre. Will the Minister work with local authorities and the Scottish Government to help more small businesses to bid successfully for contracts?

[Georgia Gould]

It is critical that we open up public procurement to small businesses. As I have said, £300 billion is a huge amount of public money, and the opportunity to ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises have access to that is also critical. As my hon. Friend said, SMEs are rooted in our communities, and provide local, often good-quality jobs.

We are taking action now to crack down on late payments that hit the cash flow of small businesses. The Chancellor announced recently that companies bidding for large Government contracts would be excluded from the procurement process if they did not pay their own suppliers within an average of 45 days.

[Bill Esterson]

The last Government promised to give more contracts through procurement to small businesses, but failed to do so for 14 years. Instead, they chose to use Government contracting to support their mates through covid. Will the Minister confirm that this Government will use the power of Government spending to contract directly with small businesses to support local companies and economies across the country, in stark contrast to the Conservative party’s enrichment of their mates?

[Georgia Gould]

As I have said, we will work hard to ensure that public contracts are supporting small businesses. I have spent a lot of time talking to them about how we can do that through the new public procurement policy and the measures in the policy statement. This week the Chancellor announced the appointment of a new covid corruption commissioner, who will be taking action to recover public money.

[Euan Stainbank]

The residents of Falkirk want a Government who work day in, day out to deliver value for money for the taxpayer. Never has that been so true as now, given the broken public finances left by the Tories and 17 years of waste and inaction from the Scottish National party up the road. Does the Minister agree that the billions we spend on public procurement must deliver value for the taxpayer, and can she tell me what steps the Government are taking to ensure that that is the case?

[Georgia Gould]

When our public services are facing so much strain and desperately need rebuilding, it is critical that we cut waste and deliver value for money. Under the last Government the procurement system too often failed to drive that efficiency, as was shown by the shocking levels of fraud and waste during the pandemic. We will bring new transparency to public sector procurement, along with a relentless focus on fraud.

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

Gross spending on public procurement was £400 billion last year. What is the Government’s precise target for delivering greater savings from that budget?

[Georgia Gould]

That £400 billion is an enormous amount of money, and we need to ensure that it is going into growth, delivering for our communities and SMEs, and delivering on our missions. We are determined to act on procurement and reduce inefficiency, and we will provide further information about that in February. We cannot take lessons from the Conservative party about cutting waste inefficiencies, given that they oversaw gross mismanagement—Lord Agnew himself referred to “schoolboy errors”—in the delivery of procurement for this country.

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

The focus on public procurement will be welcomed by SMEs in the cyber-security sector in my constituency. CyNam has thousands of members, and when I talk to its SMEs they tell me that there is a real risk of our losing talent in the start-ups community to cities abroad such as Lisbon and Toronto. Can the Minister confirm that the steps being taken by the Government are good news for SMEs and Cynam?

[Georgia Gould]

As I have said, I firmly believe that we need to support SMEs, and I should be more than happy to speak to those in the hon. Member’s constituency and discuss the opportunities that are available. There is so much innovation and talent in this country. We need to ensure that public sector money is supporting our growth mission, and supporting good businesses in communities such as those in his constituency.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for her answers. I have a very simple question: what steps have been taken to ensure that we have better procurement measures domestically in the United Kingdom and the devolved nations, particularly Northern Ireland, as opposed to relying on international partners to provide or deliver goods?

[Georgia Gould]

Through our procurement regime, we are determined to support small businesses, which are often locally rooted. We will continue to do that, while taking account of our trade obligations.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I am delighted to meet the Minister across the Dispatch Box. I have also been meeting many SMEs in the aftermath of the Budget. The impact of the Government’s decision to raise national insurance on many indirect providers of public services, such as GPs and hospices, appears not to have been fully factored into the Government’s workings at the time of the Budget. Now that the Government have had over a month to do the figures, what will be the impact of the national insurance job tax on the cost of public procurement, to the nearest, say, £1 billion?

[Georgia Gould]

I welcome the hon. Member to their place and look forward to meeting them across the Dispatch Box. Unfortunately, the last Government left this country in a terrible place, with public services in crisis. I was previously a council leader, and every single day I saw the absolute strain on our public services. People were waiting up to 12 hours for ambulances, which sometimes did not turn up. We have had to take action to invest in our public services in order to deliver growth. Through our procurement regime, we are already taking action to support SMEs, to ensure that money is not lost and to ensure that suppliers are paid quickly. I will set out more to the House in February—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We have to get through the list. Give me a chance to get through it—we are only on question 6.

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[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

15. What steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to reform public services.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Georgia Gould)]

As a former council leader, I have seen at first hand the crisis in public services, with people falling between the cracks of systems that are under extreme strain. To reform that, we need to get out of Whitehall and support workers across the public sector to do things differently. From intervening early to support families, a White Paper overhauling employment support and an ambitious programme of reforms of the NHS, this Government are determined to reform public services to deliver for citizens.

[Warinder Juss]

Under the Conservative party, too much taxpayers’ money was wasted on projects and schemes that simply did not work. Does the Minister agree with me that in order to improve healthcare services, including mental health services, educational opportunities and social services, as well as transport provision and public safety in my constituency of Wolverhampton West, it is vital that the Government continue their tests and refine their policies to ensure they are effective, and continue to be effective?

[Georgia Gould]

I wholeheartedly agree with that. I heard too often from those on the frontline that they are fed up with policy being made in a closed room in Whitehall, and not with those who have real experience of the frontline. The Budget announced the introduction of a public sector reform and innovation fund to support us to test and learn with places around the UK. We are learning from the best evidence across the public sector. On Monday, I met representatives from all the What Work centres across Government, to understand the evidence of what works and how we can scale that to deliver for communities around the country.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

We all remember that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Centre undertook that there would be no additional money going into the NHS without securing reform. That, like so many other broken promises, was dropped, and £22 billion or £25 billion—whatever it is—of funding was announced. Then afterwards he repeated the pledge that there would be no extra money without reform. Well, the cat is out of the bag. Will the Minister give the undertaking today, on behalf of the Government, that never again will we see vast increases in public expenditure without reform of public services, because we need an improvement in productivity, not just additional spending?

[Georgia Gould]

I am surprised to hear a Member on the Conservative Benches express concern about money that is desperately needed going into our NHS, when people are waiting for GP appointments and in ambulances. Under the Conservative party, police officers would spend hours sitting with people with mental health concerns. Is that productivity? The Secretary of State has set out an incredibly ambitious reform agenda for the NHS, moving resources into prevention and taking account of the amazing opportunities in digital technology to give people more control over their own health. Labour is the party that backs the NHS and fixes the mess left by the previous Government.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

18. What recent progress his Department has made on reform of the House of Lords.

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[Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)]

T5. The previous Conservative Government exposed themselves to unprecedented levels of corruption and cronyism when delivering contracts during the pandemic. Recent analysis has shown that £1 in every £3 spent went on high-risk contracts, worth more than £15 billion. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that they are always making procurement decisions that are in the public interest, avoiding unmanaged and unmitigated conflicts? What will they do to ensure that taxpayers’ money is always spent wisely?

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Georgia Gould)]

My hon. Friend is right to raise that point. Earlier this week, the Chancellor announced the appointment of Tom Hayhoe as the covid counter-fraud commissioner. The new commissioner will leave no stone unturned to investigate the unacceptable waste and fraud during the pandemic and to make sure that we learn lessons for the future.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

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[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

T7. Due to our dire economic inheritance, it is vital that every penny of public money is spent wisely. In my constituency of Harlow, £29 million was spent on Sir Frederick Gibberd College only for it to be deemed unsafe and to be pulled down. What steps will the Government take to ensure that we spend money wisely, that we do not spend unnecessary money on unnecessary consultants, and that we get the best for the people of Harlow?

[Georgia Gould]

Under the Conservative Government, too much taxpayers’ money was wasted on eye-watering consultancy contracts. We are taking steps to stop all non-essential Government consultancy spending this year and halve Government spending on consultancy in future years. [Interruption.] It might be hard for Conservative Members to hear about their record, but it is harder for us to live with it.

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

T3. Last week, the Government released their latest departmental lobbying transparency data. The data was two months late and relates to the last months of the previous Government, namely April to June 2024. The public will learn who the new Government met during their first weeks in power only at the end of December, a full six months after the election, and that is only if the data is released on time. UK lobbying rules have more holes than Swiss cheese, so will the Government set a timeline for creating a central database of departmental transparency data, with monthly updates, thereby closing the litany of loopholes in the current lobbying rules?

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[Lola McEvoy (Darlington) (Lab)]

Public procurement is a vital lever for delivering our growth mission, and growth must be felt by people in every part of our country. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that when taxpayers’ money is spent on private contracts, the key workers delivering the contract and local communities such as mine in Darlington maximise the benefits of that public money?

[Georgia Gould]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and for the time she spent with me last week setting out the opportunities of procurement and the needs of her community in Darlington. We have heard from the whole House today how important it is to back small and medium- sized enterprises that have roots in communities, and we are determined that the new national policy procurement statement will do that.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

I am delighted to give Christmas greetings to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and I am sure that most of us in the House feel a great deal of respect for him.

As the Prime Minister knew he was appointing a convicted fraudster to the Cabinet, was it not incumbent on him to tell the propriety and ethics team? If I can slip a second question in, Mr Speaker, will the right hon. Gentleman, who is committed to and leads in the Government on transparency and openness, all of which have been promised, undertake—notwithstanding the fact that he has not looked at these declarations—to find out and let the House know whether she declared it to the House?