Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps she is taking increase the proportion of her Department's procurement with SMEs.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is taking a number of positive actions to make it easier for smaller companies to do business with defence, for example launching sub-contract advertising on our online portal and engaging more regularly with smaller businesses to help understand the challenges they face. We are also introducing new measures to ensure prime contractors' pay promptly and working to improve the pipeline information that we publish.

The MOD Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Action Plan 2019-2022 was published in March 2019 and this sets out the actions we are taking in more detail. It is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mod-small-and-medium-sized-enterprise-action-plan-2019-2022