Oral Answers to Questions

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

The hon. Lady makes an entirely reasonable point. I hope that she would acknowledge that we look very carefully when an alert has been issued and seek to learn lessons from that. I can tell her that all emergency alerts are sent in conjunction with local partners, and that in Wales the alert was sent first in Welsh, and then in English, in order to fulfil our legal responsibilities under the Welsh Language Act 1993. I will look carefully at what she has said, and I assure her that we will seek to learn lessons from the way in which the alert was issued.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

21. What steps she is taking to help ensure small businesses have improved access to Government contracts.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mark Ferguson)]

All Departments have set ambitious small and medium-sized enterprise spends, and we have strengthened late payment policy and are now making it easier for SMEs to bid by raising the threshold for when social value should be taken into account. This Government are determined to use public procurement to back small and medium-sized enterprises. I was pleased that the Federation of Small Businesses welcomed our social value changes over the summer.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

I welcome the Government’s commitment to helping SMEs to access public contracts. In Calder Valley—or valve valley, as we often call it— small manufacturing firms contribute to nationally significant projects through supply chains, but are often left out of the conversation about national procurement. How can we ensure that these smaller manufacturers have the opportunities created by Governments to create a new generation of skilled manufacturing jobs?

[Mark Ferguson]

My hon. Friend is a fantastic campaigner on behalf of businesses in his local community. In his community, like mine, small and medium-sized industries play an absolutely critical role, not just in our industrial past but in our industrial future. I would be more than happy to meet him to discuss how, as we develop this agenda, we can make it work for communities like ours.