Jonathan Davies
Main Page: Jonathan Davies (Labour - Mid Derbyshire)Department Debates - View all Jonathan Davies's debates with the Cabinet Office
(1 day, 8 hours ago)
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Chris Ward
The hon. Member is right to say that part of what I am trying to do is support British businesses and reduce our reliance on others. On his specific point about Palantir, the two contracts to which he refers are NHS and Ministry of Defence-led contracts, so his questions are probably best directed at those Departments. If he wants to write to me, I am happy to try to pick that up as well, but they are NHS and MOD contracts. They did go through the procurement process, but those were the lead Departments.
Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)
I very much welcome what the Minister has said about the principles behind how we will use £400 billion of Government procurement to back companies up and down this country, and the workers behind them, by buying British. However, of course, many billions of pounds more are spent across the wider public sector, including by local authorities, the NHS and the police. Can the Minister tell me more about what he will be doing to bring those other bits of the public sector on board as he develops this process, especially to back the automotive trade?
Chris Ward
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. To clarify, the guidance that we are bringing forward and the reforms that I am talking about today will apply to Government Departments, not to the broader public sector. That is because Ministers and the Government do not have the power to direct beyond Government through mere guidance—I would need primary legislation to do so. That is something we are pushing very hard on, and I hope that legislation will come forward in a future Session. However, what I hope everybody notes, including the market and local authorities, is that the reforms I am announcing today are the reforms that I want to see rolled out across the public sector, working with local authorities as well. We want to test and learn in Government and roll out these reforms more widely, but that would require primary legislation.