Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts
Wednesday 2nd November 2011

(12 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Lord Maude of Horsham Portrait Mr Maude
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The hon. Gentleman will have heard Ministers in the Ministry of Justice talking about this when we debated the matter last week, and I think they made a very good case for what the Government intend to do.

Henry Smith Portrait Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
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T4. Can my right hon. Friend say how the British Government compare with the French Government when it comes to the number of contracts they procure with domestic suppliers?

Lord Maude of Horsham Portrait Mr Maude
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The procurement practice that we inherited from the previous Government militates heavily against the interests of UK suppliers and UK jobs, especially when it comes to very large contracts. Both France and Germany, which do not operate protectionist regimes and which obey the rules, give away fewer jobs to other countries. We are looking at this to see how we can support UK suppliers in a way that the previous Government signally failed to do.