Luciana Berger
Main Page: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)Department Debates - View all Luciana Berger's debates with the Cabinet Office
(12 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
8. What assessment he has made of the effects of changes to public procurement on the ability of small and medium-sized enterprises to secure contracts.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
9. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of new suppliers to Government working groups in making it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises to bid for Government contracts.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
We want 25% of the value of Government contracts to be awarded to small and medium-sized enterprises, and we have made significant progress towards that. This has so far led to a more than doubling in the amount of direct spend awarded to SMEs in the first half of the current year.
Mr Maude
I fully accept that it will take a little time to get things fully sorted out following the mess left after 13 years of the hon. Lady’s Government, so rather than chiding us for the progress that we are making why does she not congratulate us on our progress and start apologising for the mess her Government left behind?
Luciana Berger
Further to the Minister’s answer, the leader of one of the Government’s own working groups, Mark Taylor, who is the chief executive officer of Sirius, has said:
“There are SMEs being taken out of procurement, not put into it.”
He said that that is “simply not acceptable.” Are not Government policies, as Mr Taylor points out, making it more difficult for SMEs to take part in Government procurement projects, rather than easier?
Mr Maude
No, that is the reverse of the truth. The arrangements we inherited made it incredibly difficult for SMEs to bid, because the procurement processes were so bureaucratic, so clunky and so expensive, both for the taxpayer and for bidders, that many SMEs and voluntary and community sector organisations were, in effect, excluded. We are addressing that. There is more to do, but I would be grateful for some support from the hon. Lady’s side, particularly in encouraging Labour-led local authorities.