Falkirk MP Euan Stainbank welcomed new UK Government procurement rules designed to ensure that public spending supports British jobs, skills and apprenticeships.

Mr Stainbank, who is co-chairman of the British Buses All-Party Parliamentary Group, has repeatedly called for public procurement to do more to support domestic manufacturing.

His campaigning has included challenging the Scottish Government’s decision to award most of its £45 million ScotZEB3 funding to operators seeking to purchase buses manufactured overseas while rejecting bids to purchase buses from Falkirk-based Alexander Dennis.

This decision put 115 jobs directly at risk earlier this year.

Mr Stainbank welcomed the changes to the contract procurement rules (Picture: Michael Gillen, National World)

placeholder image — Mr Stainbank welcomed the changes to the contract procurement rules (Picture: Michael Gillen, National World)

Now the new reforms, which Mr Stainbank welcomes, will narrow the criteria used to assess the social value offered by companies bidding for government contracts.

The assessment will focus more clearly on creating high-quality jobs, addressing local skills shortages and supporting young people into apprenticeships and work placements.

These changes will apply to central government procurements from January 1, 2027.

Mr Stainbank said: “Public money should work twice as hard for us: delivering the goods and services we need while supporting good jobs, skills and opportunities here at home.

“Since I was elected, I have challenged public funding decisions that send work and investment overseas when that money could support skilled employment and manufacturing in communities such as Falkirk.

“The UK Government is right to narrow the social value criteria so that they focus clearly on jobs, skills, apprenticeships and work placements. Increasing the weighting from 10 per cent to 20 per cent for contracts worth £5 million or more gives these commitments genuine importance when bids are assessed.

“This matters enormously to businesses across the country. We have a highly skilled manufacturing workforce and businesses capable of delivering major public contracts, but too often they have been undercut by processes that fail to recognise the wider value of supporting British jobs and industrial capacity.

"Instead, social value criteria have become bogged down in tokenistic tree-planting exercises and patronising community grants offered by companies receiving public money while undermining our industrial capacity.

“I will press the Government to look again at the agreement reached with mayoral combined authorities earlier this year, which set a baseline of 10 per cent, and raise it to meet, at minimum, the Government’s ambitious new 20 per cent standard.”