Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps the Government is taking to increase SME participation in public procurement opportunities arising from the new guidance.

This Government is determined to ensure procurement policy benefits British industry and opens doors for small businesses, start-ups, and charities.

We recently implemented measures under the Procurement Act 2023 to enable local authorities to reserve lower-value contracts for SMEs or local suppliers and to establish a "tell us once" central digital platform so SMEs only have to upload their core data once to use across all future bids.

Under new measures announced on 26 March 2026, the Government is also introducing Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to streamline procurement workflows to save bidders hours of time and cut back unnecessary duplication. Our recent National Procurement Policy Statement (NPPS) also instructs contracting authorities to maximise spend with small businesses, and requires central government departments to set stretching three-year targets for direct spend with SMEs and publish their progress annually. These targets will collectively drive over £7.4 billion of procurement to SMEs by 2028.