Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of access of defence SMEs to basic banking services.

The government is committed to increasing direct spend with SMEs and are committed to ensuring they have a fair opportunity to win public contracts.

As set out in the Defence Industrial Strategy, Ministry of Defence is backing British jobs, British industry and British innovators. Since the election, we have awarded more than 1,200 major contracts, and 86% of those contracts were awarded to British-based businesses.

In January we established a dedicated Defence Office for Small business Growth to boost opportunities and access to defence contracts and the supply chain, on top of our commitment to increase spend with SMEs by £2.5 billion by May 2028.

Delivering on the commitments made in the SDR and DIS, we are developing a dedicated Defence Finance and Investment Strategy (DFIS). This is supported by a new Defence Investors’ Advisory Group, bringing together senior expertise from venture capital, private equity, and banking to address barriers to financing and investment in the sector.