Government Procurement: British Businesses

9. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to ensure Government procurement supports British businesses.

We are reforming Government procurement rules so that we can buy more that is made in this country, and we have already changed the rules on steel, shipbuilding, energy infrastructure and artificial intelligence. But I do not just want big companies to be able to get contracts; I want to help smaller businesses and charities to access Government procurement. The Government are the biggest buyer of goods and services in the economy, and I want more of that money to be spent here in Britain.

I thank the Chancellor for her answer. In Stafford, world-class manufacturers such as GE Vernova are producing the technology that powers our national grid, yet for far too long these British employers have not had money given to them through British Government contracts. I therefore warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to reform public sector procurement to grow British industry, British skills and British jobs. Can the Chancellor tell us how this new approach will ensure that Government spending reaches manufacturers and businesses in constituencies like Stafford and towns across our country, so that when the taxpayer spends, Britain builds?

I am slightly disappointed that my hon. Friend did not mention that today is Staffordshire Day; Staffordshire oatcakes are available for Members from both sides of the House in the Tea Room. On the wider issue, we do need to buy, make and sell more in Britain, with more contracts going to firms in Staffordshire—not just for their brilliant oatcakes, but for their ceramics.

I call the Father of the House.

Does the Chancellor agree that, post Brexit, Government Departments have much more freedom to buy British? Under the Procurement Act 2023, they can ignore EU directives. Will the Chancellor walk with us into the broad, sunlit uplands of post-Brexit Britain and use the freedoms that we obtained for this country?

Hear, hear!

Conservative Members cheer, but they did not use any of those freedoms. It is this Government who are doing everything we can to buy, make and sell more in Britain. One of the best ways in which we can grow our economy is to work more closely with our friends, trading partners and neighbours in the European Union—whether through rejoining Erasmus, through playing our full part in Horizon or through a deal for our food and farming sector so that we can export the great stuff that we make here in Britain into the EU as well as to so many other areas. That is why we are determined to rebuild that relationship with the European Union.