Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many government contracts with a value above £20 million excluding VAT have been re-awarded to incumbent suppliers without a competitive tendering process by central government in each of the last five years; and what is the total value of those contracts in each of those years.

Details of all Government contracts, including the procurement procedure used, are published on the Contracts Finder and Find a Tender services above certain thresholds. Details can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder(opens in a new tab).

In certain limited circumstances, it may be possible for a procuring body to make a direct award of a contract, without going through the competition stages set out in PCR 2015. The specific circumstances where this is permitted are set out in regulation 32 of PCR 2015 and the grounds for using the procedure are limited to those listed in the regulation. They include:

• where an open or restricted procedure generates no suitable tenders or no suitable requests to participate

• where the works can be supplied only by a particular operator

• in an extreme urgency

More information is available at Procurement Policy Note 01/21: Procurement in an Emergency.