Lord Bellingham
Main Page: Lord Bellingham (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Bellingham's debates with the Cabinet Office
(10 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Maude
It will be clear to the hon. Lady that the Cabinet Office deals with some of the most complex and difficult freedom of information requests, a lot of them involving previous Government papers, for which a long consultation process has to be entered into before any decision can be made. The situation will be better in some quarters than others, but in general our record is good.
Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
T8. Given that a fifth of Government procurement spend now goes to SMEs, will the Minister redouble his efforts so that these engines of growth further boost our long-term economic plan?
Mr Maude
We have made massive progress. Under the previous Government there was no attempt even to measure how much business was going to SMEs, but we are now measuring that and improving it. We have cut out a lot of the bureaucratic nonsense that often prevented small businesses from even being able to bid for business, let alone win it. The result of that, as my hon. Friend says, is that nearly one fifth of Government business goes to SMEs one way or another. It is our ambition for that to rise to 25%, and I am optimistic we can achieve that.