Maude, MP for Horsham, was talking to constituency printer Foundry Press during an event hosted by the company’s managing director Bruce Phillips that was also attended by Heidelberg and the BPIF.

He said: "I’ve always said that the economic recovery can’t be a hothouse recovery based on consumption and debt, but instead one focused on investment.

"I sense that there is a lot of investment ready to go in UK print and the confidence is nearly there to do that."

Speaking about banks lending to SMEs, Maude said it was a situation that needed monitoring. "The banks will say they have more credit than there is demand for. The problem is the terms they are offering. If these are unduly onerous, businesses won’t ask for them.

"I know that economic recovery is so important and SMEs are so important to that recovery. We have a huge interest in the banks making credit available, but making it available on terms that are affordable to take up."

In the Maude-commissioned spending report released last October, it was revealed that the government was paying up to 80% above market price on many print jobs adding to a total annual print spend of £104m.

Maude was frank about his employer's strategy of aggregating procurement across central government so to get "a better price" on products such as print.

"The conundrum we have is how to use the buying power of government to drive down, I am sorry to say, costs, but without freezing out the smaller businesses," he said.

Green’s report into government efficiency found prices paid by government for commodity purchases are often far from competitive.

According to Maude, one of the key drivers for reducing costs was simplification of the procurement process. He said that public sector procurement costs were "massively higher" for the UK than in other countries, for both the procurer and the suppliers.

He added: "Some suppliers have told me that it costs them four times as much to bid for government work than it does to bid for private sector work, and of course, the taxpayer picks up that cost eventually so we are definitely streamlining these processes a lot."