Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

6. What steps he is taking to increase access to Government contracts for small and medium-sized enterprises.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking to increase access to Government contracts for small and medium-sized enterprises.

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to increase access to Government contracts for small and medium-sized enterprises.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Maude]

I certainly do not want to shame the ones that are doing well. We have found a number of examples of procurement processes that are not meeting the new requirements. For example, Durham police recently issued an invitation to tender for a £50,000 leadership training contract. The pre-qualification questionnaire alone was 38 pages long and contained a request for 163 separate items of information plus a security vetting form. That is unacceptable, because it causes many smaller businesses to lose the will to live, and they simply do not apply.

[Mark Pawsey]

I am the former owner of a small business supplying products to the public sector. When applying to be added to a new tender list, I was often frustrated by the amount of red tape required. Will the Minister confirm that in future fewer company policies and statements will need to be provided to participate in the tendering process?

[Mr Maude]

We want to strip away all that nonsense. Under the last Government, there were 6,000 pages of guidance for some kinds of procurements. It is not surprising that smaller businesses just did not bother to apply; they knew that they were going to be excluded. There were turnover requirements and requirements for a track record of doing exactly that kind of work. The truth is that that is very bad for small businesses and we want to make things much better.