British Industry and Services: Public Procurement

Lord Londesborough Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that every memo sent by my department will be actively read by every other department. On shipbuilding, the noble Lord is absolutely right—when we were Members of the other place, I sat with the noble Lord through many debates on exactly this issue. On the immediate action that we are taking, we have created the pathfinder sector through the national security exemption in the Procurement Act. The MoD is one of those departments, and we have put a commercial lead in place specifically to look at shipbuilding. I would expect that sector lead to work across government departments to deliver in the way that my noble friend discussed.

[Lord Londesborough (CB)]

My Lords, why is it that, while our SMEs’ share of local government spending has increased to 33%, their share of central government contracts remains flat at just 16%—nowhere near the three-year target. I realise this question may be something of a gift for the Prime Minister in waiting, but perhaps the Minister could comment ahead of the coronation?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I think the noble Lord was here for previous coronations. On SMEs, he is absolutely right. There are many elements of our manifesto that can be delivered only through SME engagement, whether that is on food supply chains —where we have committed to 50% locally-grown produce in public sector food and catering contracts—or more broadly. We are working with SMEs to deliver access. The noble Lord will be aware that, when you have a difference between prime and local contractors, there have to be many ways of accessing government contracts. It may be helpful for the noble Lord to be aware that, of the £400 billion being spent, the Government have set a target for SME use by government of some £7.4 billion, which should be delivered by 2028.