PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
UK Companies: Contracts - 1 May 2019 (Commons/Commons Chamber)
Debate Detail
Contributions from Dame Harriett Baldwin, are highlighted with a yellow border.
Sir Hugo Swire
East Devon
11:52:28
Harriett Baldwin
The Minister for Africa
DFID has awarded more than 80% of its contracts to UK-registered companies in each of the last five years.
11:53:05
Sir Hugo Swire
One of the achievements this Conservative party can be most proud of is its aid budget and the fact last year Britain was the only member of the G7 to meet the UN target of spending 0.7% of GDP on foreign aid—an astonishing £13.9 billion. Of course, this attracts criticism in some quarters. Does the Minister agree that one way to negate some of the criticism of the perceived largesse of taxpayer money would be to encourage proactively more British companies to win some of those contracts, without of course contravening state aid rules?
Harriett Baldwin
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight this point. In fact, I think we are the only country in the world to have put that 0.7% figure into statute. He will see from the numbers that in open competition 80% of our contracts have been awarded to UK-registered firms, but of course we would like to see more and smaller companies, and our procurement team has been out on a range of regional tours across this land to encourage more people to bid for our contracts.
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