Cabinet Office written question – answered at on 24 February 2026.
Chris Ward
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office
The Government is determined to ensure the £400 billion of public money spent on public procurement annually delivers economic growth and supports British businesses.
The Procurement Act 2023 allows contracting authorities to require that suppliers meet specific standards by, where appropriate, setting them as conditions of participation in a procurement. Contracting authorities must be satisfied that any such conditions of participation have been met before awarding a public contract, including when a supplier proposes to meet them via a subcontractor. The Procurement Specific Questionnaire template, published on the Procurement Pathway, helps contracting authorities collect relevant subcontractor information.
The Public Procurement Review Service (PPRS) also helps to protect UK subcontractors working with government suppliers by providing a free, anonymous, and confidential way to report poor public sector procurement practices, including contract management issues and unfair, late payment issues.
The UK Government Supplier Code of Conduct v3.0 (published May 2023) outlines the ethical standards expected of suppliers working with the government. Although the Code is not legally enforceable, it encourages transparent dialogue where standards are not met and, in extreme unresolved cases, escalation to the Government Chief Commercial Officer.
We will set out further reforms to procurement rules, including the response to the recent public procurement consultation, in due course.
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The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
Neil Duncan-Jordan
Labour, Poole