Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to support British SMEs in public procurement.

This Government is determined to ensure the £400 billion of public money spent on public procurement annually delivers economic growth and supports British businesses, especially SMEs.

Since coming into office, this Government has published a new, more ambitious, National Procurement Policy Statement (NPPS) setting out our vision for public procurement. The NPPS requires contracting authorities to consider ways to increase procurement spend with SMEs and Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprises (VCSEs).

We have also introduced changes allowing local councils to reserve over one billion pounds worth of lower value contracts to suppliers based locally or within the UK which has recently become law, a step strongly supported by SMEs.

We will set out further reforms, including the response to the recent public procurement consultation, in due course.