Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to remove bureaucracy from defence primes to enable them to build out their ecosystems of (a) micro, (b) small and (c) medium-sized businesses.

Micro, small and medium sized businesses make a vital contribution to economic growth and are a valuable source of technical innovation in defence. This is recognised in the recently published Defence Industrial Strategy Statement of Intent. We work with our largest suppliers through a network of their SME Champions, trade associations and SME representatives to ensure that SMEs have fair access to opportunities in our supply chain and that our prime contractors are adopting policies, such as fair payment practices, that support small businesses working in defence. We are also engaging with our industrial partners of all sizes to develop a new SME Action Plan which will simplify and make more accessible opportunities to Defence contracts for smaller suppliers.