Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sally-Ann Hart and Craig Tracey

Thursday 27th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

What steps the Government are taking to increase opportunities for small businesses to bid for Government contracts.

[Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

What steps the Government are taking to increase opportunities for small businesses to bid for Government contracts.

[The Minister without Portfolio (Amanda Milling)]

Small and medium-sized businesses are the backbone of our UK economy. That is why it is vital that we are ensuring that the power of Government spending supports that vital sector, as part of both the economic recovery from covid-19 and our levelling-up agenda. We are increasing opportunities for SMEs in a variety of ways, and our measures are working. Those measures include breaking up contracts into smaller chunks, transparently publishing contract pipelines and removing complexity from the bidding process. Additionally, our new social value model explicitly allows greater weight to be given to those bids that help drive post-covid recovery.