The Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat manifestos have been criticised for lacking a real commitment to increasing the amount of public sector contracts won by small businesses.
Joy Nichols, Chief Executive of the CMB2 Group and a spokesman for The Enterprise Trust ,said all three parties were taking a "piecemail approach" to government procurement through SMEs.
Speaking at a panel reception for Women in Public Policy in the House of Lords on Tuesday evening, said: "[The Conservatives] seem to suggest that ICT were in some way more deserving of greater procurement opportunities than any other SME businesses. The Labour Party manifesto have only 24 lines on support for enterprise and mentioned SMEs only once [and] the Liberal Democrats...had just four lines on enterprise and not a single mention of SMEs or government procurement."
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