Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has plans to expand the Government Buying Standards across the wider public sector.

Defra already encourages the wider public sector to use the Government Buying Standards. Using these standards provides one way of tenders achieving value for money and environmental policy priorities, and this will be further supported later this month by the more flexible approach to assessing public procurement introduced by the new Procurement Act.