Oral Answers to Questions

Trudy Harrison Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady makes the very important point that we should make sure that those who need paper bills do receive them and are not unfairly penalised. Any discount made for paperless bills, or charge for paper bills, in sectors where this is allowed must be justified in relation to the relevant administration costs. We do not believe that the Government should intervene to make other customers for whom online billing and payment is perfectly acceptable bear the costs of providing a paper billing service.

[Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to support growth in the small business sector.

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

13. What steps he is taking to support growth in the small business sector.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Andrew Griffiths)]

We are actively supporting small businesses by enhancing the business support helpline and funding growth hubs in every local enterprise partnership area in England. The new Small Business Commissioner will help with payment issues, and British Business Bank programmes support nearly £4 billion of finance to more than 60,000 small and medium-sized enterprises.

[Trudy Harrison]

I thank the Minister and welcome him to his new position. Sellafield in my Copeland constituency is one of Britain’s biggest single-site employers. It is about to award its multimillion PPP contract. What is he doing to promote the role of SMEs, rather than just large companies, when awarding those contracts?

[Andrew Griffiths]

I clarify to the House that PPP stands for “programme and project partners” and not, as many might have assumed, “public-private partnership”. The programme that my hon. Friend talks about will support Sellafield in decommissioning and contains provisions designed to support small businesses. In November 2015, the Cabinet Office agreed to a target of 31% of spend with SMEs for the Government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. Moreover, as the Small Business Minister, I will look at what I can do to ensure that more is done to help small businesses to win Government contracts.