Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Spencer Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

6. What assessment he has made of the potential effects of planned changes to Government procurement on UK businesses bidding for contracts.

[Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

7. What assessment he has made of the potential effects of planned changes to Government procurement on UK businesses bidding for contracts.

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

On 21 November, I announced a package of measures to transform how the Government buy. We want to save money for the taxpayer and for suppliers and to make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises and voluntary organisations to bid successfully. That is why we have announced a pipeline of £50 billion-worth of future business opportunities. We will make it 40% quicker to do business with Government and we will, in future, engage proactively with current and future suppliers to discuss upcoming procurement opportunities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Maude]

The first thing that we are doing is trying to ensure that the way in which we implement the European directives is sensible and not overly bureaucratic and legalistic, which it usually is at the moment. The European Commission is introducing proposals to streamline and simplify the procurement directives, which we welcome. I was talking to Commissioner Barnier in Brussels two or three weeks ago, and he was very open to that happening.

[Mr Spencer]

Fresh Opportunities is a company in my constituency that supplies water drinkers to jobcentres. Sadly, though, it lost the contract. That was not because it was inefficient or too expensive but because it could not deliver a service on a large enough scale. What can the Minister do to enable SMEs, which cannot operate on a national scale, to be able to deal with Government bodies?

[Mr Maude]

We have two objectives here. We want to buy as efficiently as we can, which, in many cases, means using the scale of Government to aggregate volume and drive down prices. In many areas of procurement of commodities, goods and services, we are able to get the price advantages of aggregation but, none the less, involve SMEs much more in the process. We have a commitment and an aspiration to increase the value of SME business to 25% of the total.