Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Dugher Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I fear that the hon. Lady wrote her question before hearing my answer. We cannot make a commitment; it would be illegal to do that. We have an aspiration to move to 25%. The Government formed by the party of which the hon. Lady is a member did not even bother to measure how much of this was happening. In the past year, we have more than doubled the amount of spend that goes directly to SMEs, but there is further to go and we will go that distance.

[Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

Last week, Mark Taylor, the co-chair of the “new suppliers to Government” panel which is advising the Minister on SMEs, resigned, saying that Government contracts to SMEs were “drying up”, that things were “going backwards”, and that SMEs were

“finding it more difficult to do business with Government”,

and accusing the Government of “recounting” their figures. Given that the Minister has admitted that the Government are nowhere near their promised 25% target, will he explain why the proportion of procurement spend going to SMEs is falling at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Department of Health, the Department for Education, the Department for Transport, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for International Development, and the Treasury?

[Mr Maude]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that if Mr Mark Taylor had come to any meetings of the SME panel over the past six months, he would have been more up to speed with the considerable progress that is being made. The previous Government, for whom the hon. Gentleman was an adviser, cared so little about this matter that they did not even measure what was being done. We have, I repeat, more than doubled the amount that is spent with SMEs over the past year. That amount will continue to grow.