Speaking during yesterday’s Cabinet Office Questions in the House of Commons, North Wiltshire MP James Gray raised the complex nature of the Government procurement process and asked how the Cabinet Office could find better ways to ensure SMEs were able to win Government contracts.

Mr Gray said:

“The Government give a very welcome emphasis to the employing of small and medium-sized enterprises in Government contracts, and that is very good stuff, but does the Minister not agree that in reality, Government procurement processes are so complex, so difficult, so massive and so expensive that it is actually companies such as the defence primes that get the contracts and then hammer down the prices ​they pay to their subcontractors? How can we find better ways to ensure that the SMEs win some of those valuable contracts?“

Responding, the Cabinet Office Minister, Oliver Dowden CBE MP, highlighted that the Government had abolished complex pre-qualification questionnaires and added that if major companies were not paying small providers on time, they would be excluded from government schemes.

Mr Dowden said:

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the issue of SMEs winning contracts. This is why we have abolished complex pre-qualification questionnaires on small-value contracts, for example, and in November I announced that if major strategic suppliers were not paying their small providers on time, they could face being excluded from Government contracts.”