Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 9. I am grateful for the understanding and commitments made by the Leader of the House, and that we have consensus. In the light of that and the fact that we have taken a very long time on the first clause of the Bill, and in order not to hold people up, I shall be incredibly brief.

I think there has been a real collaborative effort to put together the jigsaw that is before us in relation to this proposition. As the noble Baroness, Lady Byford —to whom I am grateful for her support on this and other aspects of the Bill—knows, we considered this at some length in the Joint Committee scrutinising the Bill. There is unanimity because we all want this to be seen as a national project benefiting the nation as a whole. I shall come to other arguments later on other amendments, but on this one we have anonymity—I am sorry, I mean unanimity, although we might have anonymity as well if we carry on too late tonight; no one will know what we have debated.

My own area benefited originally from the stone for this building. A lot of the stone came from South Yorkshire and adjoining areas. Big Ben at the moment is being constructed with a mechanism from the north, from the city of Sheffield, and I think we can make this a real economic win-win. We need to because very big infrastructure projects, including the one that I am associated with in relation to skills and employment for the Heathrow expansion, need to be seen to reach out for gross domestic product, for GVA and for productivity. We have a terrible gap on all three of those in our country, comparing London and the south-east with the rest of the UK. If we can make a small contribution with this substantial investment of public money, we will all benefit from it.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I will just say a few words. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for his comments. The Joint Committee went into quite a bit of discussion about the fact that this should be a UK project, not a London and the south-east project. I am grateful to my noble friend the Leader of the House for responding to the way in which the debates went in the Commons and for coming up with the proposed amendments, because that is a great benefit to us. Corporate and social responsibility is extremely important in this day and age. It is so easy to just say, “Well, yes”, but not actually do it, so spelling this out in the Bill will make a huge difference.

The other thing that we talked about in the Joint Committee was the opportunities this would give for young apprentices and those who are retraining, who are necessarily young people, to learn skills and take part in a project of this size and complexity. I am very grateful that we will be able to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises to be involved in this project. I will not repeat everything that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, has said, but I am very happy to support this amendment and I thank the Leader of the House for bringing forward the amendments that she has spoken to already.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I was slightly surprised to hear the noble Baroness’s remark that this is a UK project, not a London and south-east one. The overwhelming majority of the work and the employees will be located in London and the south-east. Saying that that is not the case does not make it not the case. It is the case. This is an issue we will address later. By virtue of the fact that Parliament is located in Westminster, the temporary premises will be in Westminster, and all the refurbishment works will take place in Westminster, it is a London and south-east project. We might as well admit that completely frankly. Some weasel words about it being open and promoting the interests and knowledge of the rest of the United Kingdom do not, I am afraid, amount to anything at all when the overwhelming focus of Parliament before, during and after this work will be on London and the south-east.

[Baroness Byford]

I appreciate the noble Lord’s comments. It would be a great mistake to say that people from elsewhere who have the skills and opportunities to come here are not able to use them. Is the noble Lord really saying that people who live in London and the Greater London area are the only people who will be involved in this project? If he is, that is a very sad state.

[Lord Adonis]

I certainly was not saying that; I was simply stating the obvious. The work will be overwhelmingly located in London and the south-east because that is where Parliament is currently located.

[Baroness Byford]

That is indeed where the work will be done, but it does not have to be done solely by people living in London and the south-east. I suspect there will be quite a few people coming from abroad to work on this project as well. If that is so, I do not see why we cannot have people who live further from London than the 25-mile radius around it.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

If I can interject in this discussion, there is a real danger that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is right, but it does not have to be like that. That is why I am very supportive of Amendments 9 and 27, which are exceedingly important. When the Minister winds up, I would appreciate it if she could comment on Amendment 27 and the annual report to Parliament on “the areas in which” those who have contracts operate.

It seems that the decisions will have been made by then. They are very dependent on the nature of the procurement exercise, which is why Amendment 9 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, is terribly important. It seeks to insert provisions that,

“opportunities to secure economic or other benefits of the Parliamentary building works are available in all areas of the United Kingdom”,

which implies that the start of the procurement process will be geared to deliver that objective. The Government and those responsible for making the decisions about procurement need to plan this very carefully. It will not be enough for the procurement system simply to take national contractors from a national list, with companies that say they can employ people from all parts of the country. In reality, what will almost certainly happen is that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, will be proved right because the labour force will come from a narrower part of the UK—London and the south-east. I want to avoid that.

It is important that procurement reaches SMEs, not just big national companies. It needs to get specialist professions such as specialist architects, and get to companies based purely in the regions of England, or based only in Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales. It will not be enough for only national contractors to get the lion’s share of the business. I hope the Government will plan to achieve all this in a proactive way. I fully understand the legal position in relation to procurement law, but this is surely about enabling proper competition, not simply relying on a system which does not promote genuine competition. To do that requires competition to be enabled rather than minimised.