Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what proportion of MOD spending was awarded directly to SMEs in the financial year 2025-2026.

When this Government took office, we were not satisfied with the level of direct MOD spend with SMEs and have therefore committed to increase spend with SMEs to £7.5 billion across direct and indirect spend by summer 2028, a significant 50% increase on today.

As outlined in the https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/mod-regional-expenditure-statistics-with-industry-202526/mod-regional-expenditure-with-industry-202526#mod-expenditure-with-small-and-medium-sized-enterprisespublication, in financial year 2025-26 4% of MOD direct expenditure with UK industry was with Small and Medium-sized Enterprises.