Cabinet Office minister tries to increase threshold by “at least double”

Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, has said he is seeking to renegotiate OJEU rules as part of a drive to make it easier for small businesses to compete for government tenders.

He said he was “talking to European colleagues about the OJEU rules”.

Maude was speaking at a conference last week of industry figures and the all party parliamentary group for excellence in the built environment.

His remarks raised hopes he would be renegotiating the OJEU threshold upwards from its current limit of £100,000.“It should be pushed up to at least double what it is at the moment,” said a source at the meeting.

The European Commission is to review procurement rules, and the Cabinet Office is pushing for them to be “radically simplified” to cut costs.

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