Procurement Reform: UK Jobs and Opportunities

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2026 Written Statements

[The First Secretary of State (Louise Haigh)]

I wish to inform the House of a number of public procurement measures announced over the conference recess. These build directly upon our commitments to use public procurement as a strategic lever to back British industry, reindustrialise Britain, and ensure communities across the country benefit from growth and good jobs.

Central insourcing unit

To support our manifesto commitment to deliver the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation, the Office for the Prime Minister and Cabinet is establishing a dedicated central insourcing unit. This unit will serve as a centre of excellence co-ordinating departmental insourcing activity, unblocking practical delivery barriers, and identifying cross-Government opportunities to improve public services, restore direct operational accountability and deliver value for money. The unit will consider insourcing critical service contracts, complementing the recently announced public interest test which applies to most central Government service contracts valued above £1 million. It will work with Departments to halve consultancy spending and save over £700 million annually by 2028-29.

To support this whole-of-Government approach, Departments will also publish insourcing strategies, exploring how to deliver in-house capability and rebuild state capacity.

Cross-Government ship procurement and the National Shipbuilding Office

To streamline vessel procurement and support sovereign UK shipbuilding capabilities, responsibility for cross-Government ship procurement and maintenance will be centralised under the National Shipbuilding Office based in the Ministry of Defence.

The NSO will exercise oversight across civil vessel acquisitions, providing a strategic centre to support the UK shipbuilding industry through a clearer and more predictable pipeline of demand, and enabling a simpler route for ship procurement, including working with our European allies to do so. Full details and timelines will be formally published in the upcoming shipbuilding and marine technology action plan later this autumn.

In addition, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, an executive agency of DEFRA, intends to procure a “future delivery at sea” marine research vessel to replace the RV Cefas Endeavour. DEFRA is applying the national security exemption in the Procurement Act 2023 to restrict the contract exclusively to UK shipyards to help sustain sovereign UK shipbuilding capability, which the Government have identified as critical to national security.

Backing British jobs and skills through procurement by private utilities

Private utility companies operating with special or exclusive rights—such as electricity, gas, water, and transport networks—benefit from essential monopolies and operate in sectors critical to daily lives. The Government are clear that these organisations, which together procure billions of pounds-worth of goods and services, must use their substantial purchasing power to support good British jobs and skills opportunities in manufacturing. We expect these private utilities to follow the Government’s lead and apply social value criteria in their procurements, and the Government are engaging with them over the coming period on how they will achieve this.

Together, these reforms will ensure public spending actively backs British industry, strengthens supply chains, creates good jobs and opportunities and supports growth in every postcode.

[HCWS356]