Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of whether the subscription costs for Defence Contracts Online are compatible with his Department's policy to work more with SMEs.

Registration for, and access to, opportunities to tender for contracts with the Ministry of Defence published through Defence Contracts Online is completely free of charge, and therefore consistent with the Department's intent to make as many of our contracts accessible to SMEs as possible. We have set a challenging target for 25% of our procurement spend to be with SMEs by 2022 and are making good progress, achieving 19.3% in 2018/19, the latest year for which figures are available.