Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to Procurement Policy Note 04/20: Recovery and Transition from COVID-19, published on 9 June 2020, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of maintaining the provision of contractual relief as a result of covid-19 in line with Procurement Policy Notice 02/20; which (a) companies and (b) work areas will be affected by changes to that contractual relief; and what the timeframe is for proposals to change that contractual relief.

The Home Office reviewed the impact of PPN 04/2020 which allows continued consideration of payment and non-payment supplier relief due to impacts of Covid-19 with a focus on exit from any relief as soon as reasonably possible. We continue to work with our suppliers to review all requests for relief. This, combined with relief agreed following the launch of PPN 02/2020, has meant we have seen minimal impact to the key Home Office services which are delivered by our third-party suppliers.

To date, under PPN 02/2020 we have implemented relief against their current contractual terms with 5 companies which support services within the Borders, Immigration Citizenship System business area. All of these companies have specific arrangements to end relief arrangements