Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

10. What steps his Department is taking to share best practice in procurement among Departments.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

Procurement of basic commodities was carried out without any effort to leverage the scale and buying power of the whole Government—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order—[Interruption.] Order. In so far as we could hear the Minister, I think we have got the drift of it.

[Mark Pawsey]

I thank the Minister for his reply in as much as I heard it. It is sound commercial practice to maximise buying power by adding together the purchases of all bodies within an organisation and to use that to drive down prices from suppliers, yet Sir Philip Green found waste arising from huge variation in the prices paid by different Departments. What steps will the Minister take to co-ordinate Government procurement in future?

[Mr Maude]

We will be mandating that all of central Government should buy through centrally negotiated contracts. That will save £500 million in the current year alone, and will drive savings running into billions of pounds in the years that lie ahead.