Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assistance the Government has made available to local supply chain companies not able to participate in the Sellafield Ltd goods and services procurement process.

Local businesses are able to participate in the Sellafield Ltd goods and services procurement process. As well as engaging directly with the local supply chain, NDA and Sellafield Ltd enable the development of working relationships and commercial arrangements between local businesses and Tier 2 suppliers.

In 2014/15 of Sellafield’s total direct spend with SME’s, one-third was with Cumbrian-based suppliers. Of the remaining two-thirds, half was with one UK supplier, with the remaining half spread across SME’s across the UK. The NDA has a well-established SME engagement programme available at (http://www.nda.gov.uk/contracts-and-competition/) which Sellafield support. This includes regional and National SME steering groups – with a specific Cumbrian group being one of the regions, various guides and publications, promoting SME friendly procurements, a SME mentoring scheme and annual national NDA estate supply chain event with particular focus on SMEs. Companies local to Sellafield are engaged in these activities.

Furthermore, in recent years business support has been provided to West Cumbrian businesses through schemes delivered by Britain’s Energy Coast and financed from a combination of NDA & Sellafield Ltd socio-economic budgets. This has amounted to approximately £500K per annum supporting local schemes such as the Energy Opportunities Supply Chain Project, Linkstart, and Ways Into Successful Enterprise. NDA provided match funding of £1m to the BEC delivered Regional Growth Fund 2 for West Cumbria, and both Sellafield Ltd and NDA have previously financially supported the Innovus scheme which aims to support businesses in the development of new products through the various Technology Readiness Levels.