Alison Bennett
Main Page: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)Department Debates - View all Alison Bennett's debates with the Cabinet Office
(1 day, 8 hours ago)
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Chris Ward
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Obviously the shipbuilding industry is incredibly important for her constituency and for others around the country, and specific points in this package are designed to support that. To re-emphasise, we will work with the National Shipbuilding Office to try to work on a specific framework to ensure that we can direct procurement to British companies to deliver shipbuilding. For too long that has not happened, and we have seen in recent weeks and months the importance of having a sovereign capacity to do that. Portsmouth is a fine place to try to do so, as are other places around the country—I should not get too far into that. That is one of the reasons we picked shipbuilding early on and why we will work with the NSO to try to do that, and I am happy to meet with my hon. Friend.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
PVL is a SME in Burgess Hill that fabricates high-visibility livery, supplying 80% of police vehicles and 40% of ambulances. It is being hammered by the rules enacted in the Procurement Act 2023. Converters are the middlemen who take a regular vehicle and turn it into an emergency appliance. The 30-day payment terms set out in the Act are not enforceable. New tendering requirements cost time and money, but converters are under no obligation to use approved suppliers, and converters often go out of business owing money to the rest of the supply chain. That is a colossal waste of public sector money. Will the Minister agree to visit PVL, which is just over the border from his constituency, so that we can discuss these challenges?
Chris Ward
It is always nice to have a kind invitation to come up the road to Burgess Hill. The hon. Lady raises a really good point. I do not know the specifics of the company, but she raises exactly the kind of case that we should be trying to support. I am happy to meet, and if she sends me the details of the company, I will look into that.