Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Amanda Milling and Henry Smith(2 years ago)
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The Minister for Asia and the Middle East (Amanda Milling)
The UK welcomes the two-month truce announcement in Yemen. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we continue to support the UN special envoy and co-ordinate closely with international and regional partners.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Amanda Milling
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for being such a strong voice for the Chagossian community; I know that he has a large Chagossian community in his constituency of Crawley. We have gone to great lengths to find projects for that money that will benefit the Chagossian community. I would like to meet my hon. Friend to discuss what more we can do.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Amanda Milling and Henry Smith(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I have the honour of representing one of the largest Chagos islands communities anywhere in the world and the vast majority of them were absolutely appalled at the Mauritian Government’s recent publicity stunt in planting a flag on the outer islands of their archipelago. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that we support the UK sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory?
Amanda Milling
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and let me be absolutely clear that the UK is in no doubt about its sovereignty over BIOT. We were disappointed that Mauritius turned a scientific survey into a political stunt; the raising of Mauritian flags on outer islands of BIOT was an unhelpful way to approach a bilateral dispute. We removed the flags planted by Mauritius on BIOT. There certainly seems to be a range of reactions from Chagossians to this event; it is also very interesting to hear about my hon. Friend’s constituents, and I pay tribute to him for all his work representing Chagossians living in Crawley.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Amanda Milling and Henry Smith(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
The Minister without Portfolio (Amanda Milling)
We are ensuring that SMEs are awarded public procurement contracts. Last year, we spent £14.2 billion with SMEs, nearly £2 billion more than the previous year. We have gone further to help to ease the procurement process by introducing a range of measures to tackle the barriers faced by SMEs, such as simplifying pre-qualification questionnaires. We now have the opportunity to make procurement even simpler for SMEs following the end of the transition period.
Henry Smith [V]
An SME in my constituency has recently redeployed to the manufacture of PPE equipment in response to the covid-19 pandemic, but it is finding it very hard to secure public contracts and, indeed, is in competition with international suppliers who actually cost more. What can be done to support SMEs who have redeployed to meet the national effort as we tackle coronavirus?
Amanda Milling
We have received an extraordinary response from people offering to supply PPE and UK manufacturers wanting to make equipment from scratch, including the firm my hon. Friend mentions, and we are hugely grateful to everyone who has come forward. As a result, we have now contracted over 3 billion items of PPE through UK-based manufacturers alone. Although further personal protective equipment offers are not needed at the moment, we continue to invite other forms of support from industry.