Diana Johnson
Main Page: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)Department Debates - View all Diana Johnson's debates with the Ministry of Defence
Defence Equipment and Support
Diana Johnson Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Nick Harvey
The MOD will be the customer of the organisation and is responsible to Parliament for everything it does. If there is a failure, the buck will stop with the MOD.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Is the Minister saying that under this proposal British small and medium-sized enterprises in the defence industry will benefit?
Nick Harvey
I sincerely believe that SMEs in Britain will benefit because, at the moment, they get all their work through prime contractors, and it is a common complaint of SMEs that they do badly out of prime contractors. If we rebuild the skills inside DE&S so that it can manage the supply contracts from SMEs directly—in some instances—they will benefit. That is certainly what SMEs are telling us.