Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that public procurement processes are accessible for organisations in the fashion sector.

This Government wants to ensure the £400bn spent annually on procurement can be felt by people in their local communities and supports British industry.

On the 26th March, we announced our intention to redefine, streamline and simplify social value to ensure that government procurement takes into account when suppliers deliver good jobs, skills development and opportunities for those that most need it when they deliver contracts. The Cabinet Office is working with business, trade unions, and the voluntary sector on this and will update Parliament shortly.

This builds on recently announced three-year SME spending targets, published in March, which will see £7.4bn of direct spend going to SMEs by 2028. This is in addition to the introduction of new powers to allow authorities to reserve lower-value contracts specifically for SMEs or local suppliers.