(1 year, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, Sir Robert Francis’s study into a framework for paying compensation starts with powerful testimony from those who were given infected blood products and those around them whom this affected deeply. Members in another place shared moving stories of their constituents in responding to this Statement last week.
This all points to the absolute urgency of getting compensation to the people who we are morally obligated to help, as Ministers now have agreed. We need to keep coming back to the timetable for establishing the full scheme and press the Government to move as quickly as humanly possible. I certainly echo the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, that we need a timetable to give people certainty.
There has been considerable political turmoil this year, but it is good to know that the machinery of government kept working and has now been able to deliver the interim payments that Sir Brian Langstaff asked for in July. It would be helpful if the Minister could reiterate for the record what I understand the policy to be: that there are no circumstances under which any of those interim payments could be required to be paid back and that they could go up from £100,000 once the final scheme is in place, but they will never go down. That reassurance needs to be repeated for those applying to the scheme.
Could the Minister also ensure that recipients of compensation are properly protected as they claim for and receive these payments? We know that, sadly, there are some less moral people out there who will seek to take advantage of those entitled to compensation in any such scheme, either through excessive charges to support them through the claim process or by defrauding or seeking to defraud them once they have received the funds. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that we minimise the risks of financial exploitation of claimants during and after the claim process?
Sir Robert’s report included a recommendation for an arm’s-length body to be set up to manage the compensation scheme. This seems sensible as a way to build confidence from all parties concerned and shows lessons being learned from previous schemes such as the Windrush scheme, where there was a breakdown in confidence which damaged the scheme. Are the Government looking at how such a body could be set up? Are they doing that now under the committee that I understand is being led by Sue Gray in the Cabinet Office, to ensure that setting up such a body does not itself become a source of further delay if this is what the inquiry eventually recommends?
My Lords, I start by saying that this is an unimaginably awful matter causing heartbreak and pain to all those directly and indirectly affected. It is a deeply shaming episode, as the noble Baroness rightly said. It dates back many years to the 1970s and 1980s and is a tragedy that has affected all Governments. We have to resolve it and move forward. The noble Baroness did not mention the need to ease the stigma and to be more vocal about the awful experiences of those involved and their loved ones, especially a long time ago when HIV/AIDS was less well understood.
The noble Lord, Lord Allan, asked about the interim payments, which we have all welcomed. It was an amazing effort by the machine once those were recommended to make them all by the end of October. They can only go up; they cannot come down. I think that was the reassurance he was seeking.
The noble Baroness had a number of questions. I think the first was on whether we can commit to publishing a full timetable for compensation. Clearly, that is something we would like to do. As she will understand from the Statement, it was the Government’s intention to publish our response to the compensation framework, and timings and so on, alongside the study, but the sheer complexity and the interdependencies have meant we are not able to set a timetable or, to answer one of her other points, to respond on all of the other recommendations in Sir Francis’s extremely good and perceptive report on compensation until we have the report from Sir Brian. I understand that that is expected next summer—I cannot say anything more explicit—and clearly, we will need to respond. The plans we have put in place will ensure that we are ready to respond.
The group led by Sue Gray was referenced, and that is progressing work on many fronts. This is a priority for government, so she is bringing together Permanent Secretaries—obviously the prime group of the Treasury, HMRC, the Cabinet Office and DHSC is leading on that, but it also involves the DWP, DLUHC, the devolved nations and others, as necessary. Preparations are being made so that, once the complexities are resolved with Sir Brian’s report, we will be able to move quickly.
Clearly the Government want to work with the people affected. I should take the opportunity to say how amazing the APPG has been, and I thank Dame Diana and Sir Peter Bottomley, and I know that in this House the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Meacher, have been involved. Both Sir Brian and Sir Robert have also consulted, and as we get closer to paying out more compensation, there will be more work with the various groups—I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Allan, nodding. To pick up some of the wording of the report by Sir Robert, the schemes have to be collaborative, sympathetic and as free of stress as possible for these people who have had unending disappointments. But they also have to be simple and easy to access, and consistent with our fight against fraud and scammers. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Allan, made that point; again, it is high on our agenda.
We are working across government to ensure that we can deliver on the recommendations of the report. As I have already explained, it is a high-level, cross-government working group; it meets monthly and it is gearing up, thinking about the IT systems and how we ensure that we contact people who might want to seek compensation once we know the precise framework, and make sure that everyone can respond. Publicity is very important with these public issues, and noble Lords across the House can help with that, so that people know what is happening.
The final point I do not think I have covered is whether there should be an ALB, which is one of the recommendations in Sir Robert’s report. We are of course giving that careful consideration. It is clear how important it is that any vehicle for delivery of a compensation scheme carries the trust of the victims—I cannot make that point strongly enough—but it also has to achieve the objective of delivering compensation in a speedy and efficient manner. There are also issues regarding legislation and so on, which the Gray group is looking at.
To conclude, we are doing everything that we can within the constraints that I have described, and which the Paymaster-General, who spoke in the House last week, was very honest about. We will make progress statements to the House so that we do not repeat the difficulties of the past. We are absolutely determined as a Government to give this priority and get it sorted. This has been a serious failure and we have to compensate those who have had such a ghastly time.
My Lords, I declare an interest: I was a Health Minister 43 years ago and am someone who has been told that they may be a potential witness in this inquiry.
Along with those who have served in another place, we have all met those who have suffered from these tragic errors and waited so long. We want to see an early resolution. I urge my noble friend the Minister to give sympathetic consideration to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Allan, following up the recommendation from Sir Robert Francis, that there should be an arm’s-length body to administer compensation with independence of judgment and accountability to Parliament. That seems to be a crucial factor in maintaining confidence in the system.
Finally, are there some lessons to be learned by government from this tragedy? The fatal errors were made in the 1980s, the inquiry was established in 2017, it will be 2023 before we get the final recommendations, and then there will be payments. Are there lessons to be learned about the sheer timescale of the inquiry in order to minimise the distress that will be caused in future?
I thank my noble friend. I think I have said probably as much as I can about having an arm’s-length body, but clearly it is helpful to have Sir Robert’s advice on this important matter. No options are ruled out, and that is certainly one of the recommendations that we are looking at very seriously.
Independence in making sure that everybody gets the compensation they need and ensuring trust in the system are lessons that need to be learned. I like my noble friend’s challenge that we always need to learn lessons from mistakes that are made in government; coming from another world, it is something that I always try to do. Across all parties, we have been slow to take grip of this awful issue.
Having said that, it was the Conservative Government who set up the inquiry into infected blood in 2017. We then commissioned Sir Robert Francis to do a compensation study. The force of that study led Sir Brian—they are both involved in this; they work together—to recommend, on 29 July 2022, that an interim payment should be made. By October, we had paid that interim payment to all those he recommended should receive it. We have also ensured that it is exempt from tax and disregarded for benefits.
My Lords, as the Minister said, this is a tragedy. It is almost unimaginable what the families affected by this have gone through and are going through. My question is very simple and follows on from what two noble Lords who have spoken said. Do the Government anticipate that all the people who have suffered infection will get an interim payment, or is it limited?
The interim payment is confined to those Sir Robert suggested it should be paid to—those who were infected. There was an ongoing scheme over a number of years to make payments to those affected—there were around 4,000 of them, so we knew who they were—and their bereaved partners. It was limited, as you will see if you look at Sir Robert’s report, because he felt that the complexities of deciding who else should receive compensation were too difficult, and that we should therefore come back to the wider group when we had Sir Brian’s report.
My Lords, I think the whole House is grateful to the Minister for accepting that there have been too many long delays on this over the years. On the third page of the Statement, there is a reference to possible delays in working with the devolved Administrations. I gently point out that, this year, we have had two Bills going through your Lordships’ House where work was done speedily with the devolved Administrations. The Minister knows one of them very well—the Procurement Bill—but there was also the Health and Care Bill, where Members of your Lordships’ House were not allowed to lay amendments because of pre-agreement with the devolved Administrations. So it is certainly possible to work at pace. If the spirit of the Government is willing to move this forward, will they please prioritise these sorts of discussions, including with the devolved Administrations, to overcome the hurdles?
I worked with a theatre group that performed at Treloar School every summer. Of about 89 haemophiliac children who were at the school in the 1970s and 1980s, only a quarter are still alive, and of course, some of them are dying. They are psychologically scarred, not least because they were children away from home and had no say in the treatment that they were given, which everyone believed was a miracle cure. Factor 8 was going to be the change of life for haemophiliacs. Instead, for many of them it has become death.
I echo the questions raised by other noble Lords. It would be helpful for the Government to confirm a date by which they will come back with clear proposals. Generous though it is, this Statement just pushes things further into the long grass. To paraphrase another well-known saying, compensation delayed is compensation denied. In this case, it is also about justice being delayed and justice being denied.
I thank the noble Baroness for those comments, which underline the scale, gravity and dreadful consequences of this. It is very important that we dwell on that point. It is important to those who have been affected that they understand our sympathy as well.
Obviously, we hope and expect to get the report next summer. We will then move as fast as we can. It is clear that those of us now working in the Cabinet Office are giving this a very high degree of commitment. I assure the noble Baroness that we are also trying to work closely with the devolved Administrations. She knows that I mean it because we worked together on the Procurement Bill. It will be a UK-wide scheme, which is a good thing, but she will know there were disparities in the support scheme payments that were made. The DHSC acted to remedy that in a parity exercise, ensuring that Northern Ireland was aligned. That is an example of how we have been working with the devolved Administrations. When I answered the question asked by the noble Baroness opposite, I made it clear that the devolved Administrations were part of efforts to anticipate the findings that will come through and ensure that we are well prepared.
(1 year, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I begin by sharing the many thanks expressed to the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, for opening the debate with such verve, and indeed to her committee and its staff. I thank all noble Lords for their interesting contributions.
The Public Services Committee, of which the noble Baroness is clearly an excellent chair, has delivered an insightful and important report that has been welcomed by us all. It is a cornucopia of insights and examples. We have had more today—Camden and Wigan councils and secondments mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, the local IT training mentioned by my noble friend Lord Kamall, high employee participation in the Swedish model mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and so on. At a more strategic level, it has also rightly highlighted the growing demands on the public sector workforce and the need to find different ways of delivering effective public services and, of course, taking the public sector with us and serving the public well.
I agree with this challenge. I believe we can help to square the circle by making the public services more efficient. This is a mixture of big things—a past example might be making the Bank of England independent—and a plethora of small things. Some of these involve doing things better—for example, using new technology in the right way—and others involve reducing or ceasing inefficient activities and increasing flexibility, as the report highlights. Even more crucial is to attract and retain the right talent and train the workforce well. Examples of all these things can be found in the committee’s report.
Since I last served in government, we have improved the life cycle of government delivery—the way we procure, the way we manage and the way we evaluate. To pick up on the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Collins, I think this is a major strategic contribution. We are improving the way we procure, not only through the Procurement Bill and associated transformation but with high-quality recruitment and professional training to ensure that public services are well equipped with products and services. We will bring in SMEs, social enterprise and the voluntary sector, on which my noble friend Lord Kamall has spoken with passion.
We have improved the way that major projects and workstreams are managed through the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, run jointly by my department and the Treasury, to support successful delivery. We have also improved the way we evaluate government spending decisions with the Evaluation Task Force, which provides specialist support to ensure that evidence and evaluation are used to drive continuous improvement and inform Ministers on decisions.
Specifically on the report, much progress has been made in aligning with its recommendations. The People at the Heart of Care White Paper sets out our strategy for the social care workforce and system reform. We are taking forward ambitious reforms to the social care system and progressing the proposals in the White Paper, including on training and technology—a key focus of today’s report. This includes boosting workforce capacity, supporting sector digitalisation, developing our approach for improving oversight of the adult social care system, and enhancing the collection and use of data. Another example is the introduction of the public sector apprenticeship target to boost apprenticeship starts across the public sector, which I will come on to, and ongoing investment in preventive services, as several noble Lords have mentioned.
Picking up some of the key themes of discussion, as we recover from the pandemic and face a tight fiscal position, it is more important than ever that we focus on easing pressure on public services. One way we can do this is through investing in technology, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, said; that is highlighted in recommendation 9 of the report. It is clear that having efficient and effective technology is an integral part of delivering high-quality public services and, as the noble Lord said, it can help with planning and co-ordination. That is why we have created the Central Digital and Data Office in the Cabinet Office to help build an effective digital Government, which includes a commitment to exploit emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain and quantum computing. By 2025, the Government are committed to having improved the skills of 90% of senior civil servants against the digital and data essentials core curriculum, which includes a specific focus on the needs of users and real-life experience—a key theme of the report.
Innovation is key in the design and delivery of public services, and it should perhaps have been mentioned a bit more. Access to data is often central to improving the lives of citizens and businesses. For example, it can be seen in the Geospatial Commission’s work on electric vehicle location data to support the rollout of electric vehicles, and in the national underground asset register, which is building a digital map of underground pipes and cables that will revolutionise the maintenance, repair, installation and operation of buried infrastructure, so district nurses will not be waiting in their cars while roads are being dug up.
We need to create leaders throughout the public sector who can navigate the challenges it faces. In recommendation 32, the committee rightly challenges the Government to promote best practice through the Leadership College for Government. The college works with a wide range of partners and leadership academies on common topics, sharing expertise, user focus and feedback. It will be a forum to encourage best practice, for which the noble Lord, Lord Collins, called. I was particularly glad to see that this will include front- line visits by the top of the office—the senior civil servants—right across the UK. The noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, spoke about knowledge and skills networks. I would like to talk to her further, but the college can become such a network to share knowledge and skills across the public sector.
As well as focusing on those at the top, the Government are focused on creating a pipeline of new talent into the public sector and a skilled and capable Civil Service. As part of this, we launched a revised apprenticeship strategy in April 2022, which sets out our commitment to apprentices making up 5% of the UK Home Civil Service workforce.
Recommendation 23 of the report calls for the successful public sector apprenticeship target to be reinstated. The target was introduced to boost apprenticeship starts across the public sector, and its introduction has had a positive impact—it has been a “successful action”, to pick up on the noble Baroness’s words—with over 220,000 apprenticeship starts in the public sector over the initial four-year target period. Apprenticeship starts by new and existing employees now represent around 1/10th of all starts in the public sector. Of course, apprenticeships can also be a vehicle for lifelong learning, and need to be encouraged right across the board.
We are also committed to creating a skilled and highly trained public sector workforce. Despite what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said, for example, the Department for Education has taken action to attract more people into teaching and enable them to succeed, with an entitlement to at least three years of structured training, support and professional development for all new teachers. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, that we need to value teachers, which means building on local good practice. I was recently at Corpus Christi Catholic High School in Cardiff, and I saw the difference that a very good headmaster could make. It was clear that he was training the teachers and empowering them.
I acknowledge that STEM subjects are a challenge. I know from my noble friend Lord Younger that even the University Technical College in Portsmouth finds it very difficult to get girls to sign up to its STEM courses. We want to bring teaching into line with other prestigious professions such as law, accountancy and medicine by a better approach to training.
In addition, the Department of Health and Social Care continues to provide financial support to those wishing to qualify as social workers, through the £58.5 million social work bursary and £18.6 million education support grant. I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, about the difficulties for those without formal qualifications in social care. I know from my own experience with my father’s carer, whom we helped to get qualifications while she was caring for him, that we need to be imaginative and do more in that area.
Training in cyber and computing skills si also a priority. We cannot deliver improved cyber-resilience or meet the integrated review ambitions on science and technology unless we grow and upskill our workforce.
The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, made some insightful and authoritative points about training and the police force—and, indeed, about police management more generally. I am afraid that I am unable to respond to his detailed points, but we are meeting next week, because he is kind enough to serve as a non-executive director on the Cabinet Office board, and perhaps we can talk further about the points that he has made. If need be, I can come back to him in writing as well.
My noble friend Lord Shinkwin made some very powerful comments about disability in the public service, and I look forward to seeing the IoD report that he mentioned. I recognise his unique contribution and perspective on how we best support disability in public service; he is right to pick up from the report the need to focus on users across the board and say how that can make a difference. I would add that our Access to Work programme has contributed to 1.3 million more disabled people being in work than in 2017, hitting a government commitment. We want to create more opportunities for disabled people to participate and thrive, and our important work on our health and disability White Paper goes on.
Many noble Lords have talked about preventive services. To respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, we need to prioritise investing in preventive services so that we can ease the burdens on public services by solving problems, as she said, before they become acute. For example, the likelihood of ex-offenders reoffending is significantly decreased if they have a home, a job and access to healthcare, including substance misuse treatment. That is why the Ministry of Justice is investing £200 million a year by 2024-25 to drive down reoffending and to offenders off drugs and into skills training, as well as into work and living in stable accommodation.
The 2021 Autumn Budget saw the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’ supporting families programme, which now has planned funding of £695 million over three years. It is an important programme because it helps disadvantaged families with problems relating to unemployment, financial insecurity, the risk of homelessness and educational inequality.
My noble friend Lord Kamall brought fascinating insights into the link between government departments, civil society organisations and public sector partnerships. He will know that many government departments hold regular engagements at official and ministerial levels with civil society organisations to consult on the implementation of policies and to find innovative ways to improve public services from the point of view of citizens and users. The work we are doing on procurement represents something of a step-change in this area. I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire—we often disagree on these points—in that the amendment we made on Report regarding social enterprises and SMEs sends a message which is extremely important in the transformation programme that follows the Bill.
The Government have been very ready to use the private sector and civil society to deliver, as my noble friend Lord Kamall will know from DCMS, which very much leads the way. I believe in consultation with stakeholders and have been seeking help from stakeholders and users on the development of border import controls, which is one of my current challenges.
I am sorry so many committee members have been kept away by industrial action today. It is important that we view this report within the context of industrial action across the public sector, the huge economic challenge we face and the risk of inflation running out of control. This Government are committed to working constructively, but we need the unions to be fair and reasonable in return. Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said, the country simply cannot afford some of the demands being put forward, such as the 19% demand from the nurses, who of course we all support and value. The only way to truly mitigate the impact of these strikes on people is for the unions to go back to the negotiating table for a reasonable solution.
And employers. I know from my experience at Tesco, which the noble Lord, Lord Collins, was kind enough to reference, how important discussions with unions on ways of working and training can be. It is not only about pay; it is also about how you modernise, move forward together and use new technology, as he was saying. So I think even the old-fashioned Labour people opposite—
—old-fashioned new and old—might agree with that. However, for today, strikers need to ask themselves whether it is really fair to do what they are doing as the country is trying to have what is meant to be the first normal Christmas for some time.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, spoke at some length about pensions, which I know from previous exchanges he is very knowledgeable about. The Government implemented a number of pension scheme reforms in 2015. One area of reform was to make it easier to stay in work for longer and to return to work after taking pension payments by introducing late retirement factors and removing the abatement on re-employment. The Government already provide flexibility for those transferring into, out of and within the public sector—for example, through the ability of staff joining the public sector to transfer accrued pensions from private sector schemes into their public sector pension scheme, and the public sector transfer club for transfers within the public sector. On the transfer of smaller pension schemes, I will have to come back to him, but quite a lot is being done. As the noble Lord will know, I cannot bind ministerial colleagues, but he is right to say that the public service pensions are a crucial part of the total remuneration package for staff in the public services.
Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, asked about the Employment Bill. I believe that some of the measures on workers’ rights that she is probably concerned about, and that we pledged in the manifesto, are now being picked up in Private Members’ Bills starting in the other place, and they have passed their Second Reading. She smiles. So, some progress is being made. We agreed that flexibility can be powerful and important in public services. For example, I know that it is important in bringing older people into the workforce. I thank her for raising that point and for the opportunity to discuss progress on employment.
In closing, I again thank all noble Lords for their excellent contributions throughout this debate. We share the sentiments of the committee’s report and agree that the Government and the country face enormous challenges: an ageing population, climate change, recovering from Covid and the war in Ukraine. We can meet those challenges only if we continue to innovate, harness new technology, build and value a more skilled workforce, and always look to do things more efficiently. If we do this, I believe that we can deliver the services our people deserve. I am here to do all I can to make that happen.
(1 year, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, before the Procurement Bill is read a third time, I will deal with the legislative consent aspects. Most of the provisions apply to England, Wales and Northern Ireland only, and a few also apply to Scotland. Throughout the preparation and passage of the Bill, we have been working closely with each of the devolved Administrations. As noble Lords will know, there are provisions in the Bill which engage the legislative consent process in the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru and the Northern Ireland Assembly. Currently, the devolved Administrations have not granted a legislative consent Motion; however, we are engaging constructively with officials and Ministers on addressing outstanding points, and I reassure noble Lords that the Government will continue with this engagement as the Bill is introduced into the House of Commons. I beg to move.
My Lords, I will move a minor technical amendment to Clause 110 in my name. I know how keenly noble Lords have scrutinised the Bill, and I am therefore confident that they will have noticed that, in the definition of “equivalent body” in Clause 110(6), the very incongruous words, “[subsection removed]”, appear in square brackets. I am informed that this cannot be amended administratively to make the appropriate cross-reference. Therefore, in the interests of sending the Bill to the other place in a form which can be understood, I have tabled an amendment to insert the missing cross-reference, which is to Clause 1(4). I beg to move.
I thank the Minister because I have been worrying myself to death about this issue and clearly welcome her amendment.
My Lords, having taken over this crucial Bill from the now Leader of the House, I have had the pleasure of hearing a range of informed contributions from across the House on it. Noble Lords have offered a rich and stimulating debate in Committee and on Report, and I thank them for engaging constructively with what has at times been a challenging piece of legislation. As ever, I thank noble Lords for their forbearance with what I fear may be a record number of government amendments tabled in the Lords to help the Bill function optimally.
My objective in leading this Bill has been to ensure that it encourages a more open, effective and transparent public procurement while encouraging economic growth. One in every £3 of public money—some £300 billion a year—is spent on public procurement, yet at present we must wrestle with over 350 different procurement regulations across four different regimes. Noble Lords know my passion for paring back needless bureaucracy, in particular removing barriers for SMEs, and I know they have welcomed the new provisions I instigated to require contracting authorities to think about SMEs routinely. We have also put provisions in the Bill for the new single central online platform, which will underpin the new system and achieve a real step change in transparency.
This simplification of regulations is not at the expense of stringent, well-thought-out measures ensuring that procurement is done safely and appropriately in the relevant sector. Noble Lords will be aware of the national procurement policy statement, the procurement review unit and the debarment list. All these measures will make public procurement safe and ethical and take into account wider factors that I know many noble Lords right across the House care deeply about. These reforms are intended to provide a shift towards a modern and flexible procurement regime and deliver better outcomes for taxpayers, service users and the businesses and social enterprises involved.
Before I conclude, I would like to make noble Lords aware of an error on my part during the second day of Report, which I must correct. Amid the highly technical debate, I wrongly said that the national security exclusion ground was mandatory. In fact, it is discretionary. This is because it is desirable to have flexibility for contracting authorities considering exclusion on this ground, depending on the specific circumstances involved—for example, the nature of the threat to national security and/or the risk to the contract being tendered.
In concluding, I thank my noble friends Lady Bloomfield and Lady Goldie for their support on this Bill. I also extend particular thanks to my noble friends on the Back Benches for their contributions, challenge and support. I am very grateful to noble Lords on the Front Benches opposite and on the Cross Benches for their time and constructive engagement from the day I took the Bill over from my noble friend the Leader of the House. Finally, I thank the officials who have worked on the Bill, particularly Sam Rowbury, Ed Green, the previous Bill manager Phillip Dunkley and the current Bill manager Katrina Gajewska, as well as the wider official team, others supporting noble Lords across the House and my private office. I wish the Bill a safe passage through the other place.
My Lords, I am sure that noble Lords will be very surprised to know that I thank my noble friend Lord Coaker for supporting me and sticking with the Bill all the way through. It has been a long haul, and I think we are all pleased we are at Third Reading.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord True. At the beginning of the Bill, he gave me an awful lot of time, as did his officials, when we had some serious concerns. As the noble Lord, Lord Fox, mentioned, we had a bit of a sticky start. The officials worked incredibly hard to get us to a position where we could properly debate the issues in Committee; at the beginning, we were not in that position, unfortunately. We all congratulated the noble Lord, Lord True, on his promotion, but we were also delighted as a Committee when the noble Baroness took over this Bill, because she was genuinely interested in what we were debating and genuinely understood what we were trying to achieve. I think she worked very hard and brought in some important improvements to the Bill, having listened to Committee. I thank her for her time, efforts and energy in helping us all to come out with a Bill that was better than what we had at the start.
I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and other Members who took part for the constructive work we did going forward on the Bill. It is much appreciated. I think all Members of the Committee would agree that the Bill we have sent to the other place is in a much better state than it was when we received it. I thank everybody very much for their hard work. I hope the other place considers our amendments seriously—I think they make the Bill better—and perhaps brings some further improvements that we can look at when it arrives back. It has been a pleasure to work on the Bill, but I am pleased we are now moving on.
I would like to briefly thank all those who have spoken. I agree with them on almost everything, and I also agree that we should commend my noble friend Lord True, now the Leader of the House, perhaps partly because of his achievements in this area. It has been a great pleasure to become a gamekeeper for the Government rather than be a poacher for the Back Benches. My noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering raised the devolved issues; of course, we hope that these things can be amicably resolved in the other place. Procurement is a devolved issue—the Scottish Government have not joined the UK Government’s Bill and will be maintaining their own legislation. Contracting authorities in Scotland will therefore not be bound by the Bill other than to enable their use of frameworks, dynamic markets and joint procurement. They are operating their own regulations, having transposed the EU directives into their own statute book. There are some outstanding issues, particularly with the Scottish Government. We are pursuing those, and I hope they will be resolved before we see the Bill again.
(1 year, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, as a responsible Government, we have been planning and continue to prepare for a wide range of scenarios. Tried and tested contingency measures are in place to minimise the impact of potential strike action on the public. Our priority over the coming weeks is to limit the disruption to the public as much as possible and protect critical services over Christmas and the new year.
I thank the Minister for that Answer. On the health service, is it not the case that this dismal negotiation over what constitutes a category 1 emergency—that is, life-threatening—itself risks further increasing unnecessary loss of life if people are deterred from ringing 999 in their hour of need? On the wider situation across the transport network, regardless of people’s views on the overall merits of particular pay claims, is it not the case that we all, both in this House and in the other place, have a responsibility to say unequivocally that it is wrong to bring the economy to its knees and threaten mass damage to people’s livelihoods, particularly in the hospitality sector, at this critical time of year?
On the noble Lord’s first point, I will write to him as it is really for the Department of Health and I do not know the answer. On his wider point, I agree with him that it is very important that people take account of what is happening across the country and how industrial action has affected businesses in lots of different sectors, as he said. Of course, we regret the decisions taken by multiple unions to strike. We greatly value the work of the public services but pay deals have got to be fair and affordable.
Can the Minister confirm whether, in the scenarios that are being planned for, the deployment of regular and reserve military manpower might be called upon? If that is the case, can she also confirm whether the new, revised chapter of last year’s integrated review might reverse the decisions on reductions in the manpower strength of both the Army and the Volunteer Reserves?
Although I sympathise with the noble and gallant Lord’s points on the wider question of the Army, this is not something that I can comment on. However, I can say that, as he knows, the Government are able to utilise the military aid to the civil authorities protocol as a last resort to respond to major strikes. It is a tried and tested process that covers a range of risks, obviously including strike action. We are stepping up contingency measures, with around 2,000 military personnel, and some civil servants and volunteers, currently being trained to support a range of services if the need arises.
My Lords, it suits the Government to claim that these are union disputes but is it not the case that the members of those unions have voted unanimously for action because their living standards have been squashed so much by this Government? Instead of interfering in those negotiations, would it not have been better for the Government to have tried to find a solution to the rail and health service strikes rather than sitting back and claiming that they are nothing to do with them?
The Government have done a great deal to try to move things forward. On rail, which the noble Lord referenced, a new and improved deal, backdated, at 4% this year and 4% next year, has been offered. But although we want pay deals to be fair and affordable, and want independent pay review bodies to help with that process, our number one priority must be tackling inflation, which currently stands at 11%.
My Lords, does the Minister understand that Royal Mail is being destroyed by the current management, and that although it would be very disappointing that the strike may stop some Christmas cards getting through, the vast majority of the public, particularly in rural areas, realise that the working conditions of ordinary post men and women across the country are being changed deliberately? This is not a dispute about pay; it is about how the Royal Mail wants to destroy letter posts throughout the country.
I have a great deal of admiration for Royal Mail. The way that it kept going and delivered all our mail through Covid, and has changed its operating model to do parcels and compete with others, is amazing. We are in touch with Royal Mail. It has well-developed contingency plans for strikes and will continue to do what it can to keep services running through December. We continue to monitor the dispute closely, and obviously urge people to post early for Christmas. There is a wider process of change within Royal Mail, and the noble Baroness makes some important points.
Is it not a tragic comment that the present situation in the railways appears to be that those who are putting in the pay claims will get 9% over the next few years but those on lower pay will get an extra payment as well? It may be that the union leadership is looking for another 1% or 2%, but is not the fact of the matter that, against that background, they are going to cause chaos and confusion for a huge number of people, a lot of whom earn a lot less than those who are going on strike? Must one not hope that, in the interests of their own industry, and the rail industry, the membership of the unions, and the RMT in particular, will show a rather more constructive approach than their leadership?
That is often the case; my noble friend is right. As I have already said, they were offered an improved deal. Obviously, negotiations are a matter for unions and employers, but we are clear that the dispute on the railways has gone on too long. We will continue to facilitate negotiations to reach an agreement that is fair: fair to workers, to passengers and to taxpayers. I think that upping the strikes over Christmas risks driving even more people away from the railways, at a time when passengers and businesses should be taking advantage of the festive period.
My Lords, that being the case, why is it that this Government spent the summer aggravating the situation and failing to sit down with representatives to negotiate a settlement? That is why we have ended up in the situation we are in.
As I said, the Government do not negotiate; it is for the employers and the unions to get together. There have been negotiations that involve not only pay but changing practices, which I strongly support and which will help with services and productivity on the railways, which I strongly support. I regret that people cannot come together and come to an agreement on this, which will help to save the railways’ future.
My Lords, the Minister referred to the deployment of military. I want to follow the question of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton. There are proposals that the military be deployed to replace ambulance workers who are on strike. How many serving military personnel are qualified paramedics or have the formal equivalent recognised qualification, and are not currently on, just back from, or due to go on deployment? We know that our military is under considerable pressure as well.
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. These are the sorts of details that the military, the COBRA unit and the departments that may need help from the military are looking at on a contingency basis. One problem we have is predicting what is going to happen with the strikes; every day there seems to be an announcement of different plans, and we are trying to work to make sure that the strikes do not happen.
Noble Lords may recall the long ambulance strike of the 1980s that lasted six months and more. The military actually enjoyed the experience because it had real casualties to deal with instead of the pretend ones used in paramedic training—the military then had more paramedic training than the civilian ambulance drivers in the NHS. Is not our recollection of the 1960s and 1970s that, if the Government intervened in every strike to ensure that some improved offer was made above what the employers wished to make, it made every strike seem successful and encouraged people to vote for more strike action in the succeeding round? Whatever happens this year—and we hope we can resolve these issues—we must not return to the old wage-price spiral that was so destructive in those days.
I agree with my noble friend, and that is a very good point on which to end this useful exchange.
(1 year, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given by my honourable friend to an Urgent Question in another place. The Statement is as follows:
“Mr Speaker, the Government welcome the opportunity to stress again the importance of the role of the independent adviser and this Government’s commitment to it. The Prime Minister has been very clear that the appointment of a new independent adviser is a priority and that the appointment process is under way. Honourable Members will understand that an appointment of this nature is significant and has to be done well. Much as honourable Members might wish me to, it would not be appropriate for me to comment further on the specifics of what is an ongoing appointments process. Let me assure honourable Members: the adjudication of issues of ministerial conduct does not stop because the independent adviser is not yet in post. Conduct matters and conduct issues will be dealt with quickly and appropriately, irrespective of that appointment process.
That is what honourable Members will have seen with regard to the complaints made against the Deputy Prime Minister. On receipt of formal complaints by the Cabinet Office, the Prime Minister requested that an independent investigation be conducted by an individual from outside government, and Adam Tolley KC has been appointed to conduct the investigation. The terms of reference have now been published. The process is under way, and Mr Tolley will provide his report to the PM in due course. It is right that these matters are investigated fully, but it would not be right to comment further on them with that process ongoing.
I would also like to reassure honourable Members that the process of managing the interests of Ministers continues in the absence of an independent adviser. The Permanent Secretary, as the policy expert on each department’s remit, leads the process in their department in the absence of an independent adviser. The Cabinet Office is able to provide advice in line with precedent. All relevant interests are declared by Ministers upon taking office and are kept up to date at all times. The publication of the list of Ministers’ interests is the end point of the ministerial interests process, and it takes place at regular intervals to make the public aware of the relevant interests of Ministers.
I end by reiterating that as soon as there is an update on the process to appoint an independent adviser on Ministers’ interests, the Government will update the House.”
My Lords, I do wonder how many times Ministers can tell us that this is such an important issue and that it is a priority without appointing anyone. There is a queue of outstanding, incomplete investigations at present, and the Government have already had to draft someone in to investigate the alleged behaviour of the Deputy Prime Minister in a separate process. What are the estimated costs of this delay? King’s Counsels will not come cheap for such an investigation. Why does the Minister think candidates are refusing even to consider taking this appointment up? I understand that several have been approached. Could there be a problem with the Government’s definition of independence, which appears different from that of the rest of us?
The noble Baroness refers to the cost of the King’s Counsel hired to help on the Raab inquiry; it is obviously the usual process that costs will be accounted for in the Cabinet Office annual report and accounts. However, I understand that in the other place my honourable friend Minister Burghart has committed to write on the issue and I will ensure that this letter is shared with the noble Baroness. Could she remind me of her second point?
It was only a couple of seconds ago. Why does she think good candidates are refusing to take up the position? Could it be to do with the Government’s definition of independence?
It is an important role, so we need to take time. The new Prime Minister has been with us for only 31 days—I hope he will be there for many years. The post needs to be filled by a person of integrity and credibility with the experience and judgment to win the confidence of Ministers, Members of Parliament and the public. I believe that this is right in order to find the right person; we are determined that the appointments process being conducted should do that. I would not want to comment on speculation or specifics—noble Lords are always trying to encourage me to do this. They should be assured that it is a priority. An independent adviser will be appointed and we are getting on with it.
My Lords, is the problem not that the title “independent adviser” is an oxymoron? It is very clear from the experience of the last two advisers that the role is that of a “dependent adviser”—dependent on the Prime Minister taking any notice of what they recommend. Does the Minister recognise that the key element of the Ministerial Code here is the chapter on relations between Ministers and civil servants, and that the current problem we have in Whitehall is partly that a large number of senior civil servants are beginning to lose confidence in the Ministers with whom they work? That is partly because the turnover is far too fast; there have been five Ministers in various posts in the last year—the Secretary of State for Education, for example. If Ministers lose the confidence of their civil servants, the quality of government will go down further. What are the Government going to do to reassure Whitehall that Ministers will continue to treat civil servants with respect, listen to reasoned arguments and evidence, and on that basis, take decisions that can carry their civil servants with them?
I have two points. First, it is right that, under the British system, the Prime Minister appoints the independent ethics adviser. He is accountable to Parliament for that appointment. If parliamentarians do not like the appointment, they can raise it in Parliament. I used to be a civil servant, as the noble Lord knows. I think the Civil Service has worked magnificently to deal with the changes of ministerial office that we have seen in recent months. Those of us who are now fortunate enough to be Ministers are working hard and respectfully with the Civil Service.
My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The Minister may recall that 12 months ago, we issued a report, Upholding Standards in Public Life, which made a number of recommendations for improving and reinforcing the role of the independent adviser. We have not yet had a full response from the Government on that report. Does the Minister agree that it might be easier to find strong candidates if there had been agreement from the Government that the independent adviser should be able to initiate their own investigations, and that that would be reassuring to the public?
I thank the noble Lord for his work in this important area. I remind the House that in May 2022, partly as a result of this report, changes to the role of the independent adviser were announced. The current terms of reference for the independent adviser, which I am happy to share if need be, allow them to initiate an investigation following consultation with the Prime Minister. The consultation process ensures that any public interest reasons not to proceed are raised, should they occur. In such an event, the independent adviser may require the reasoning for that to be made public, unless doing so would undermine the grounds that led to the investigation not proceeding. Other points were made in May and there was also a statement in July. Noble Lords will understand that there have been changes of Government and therefore some things have gone a little slower than they perhaps might in the future.
My Lords, does the Minister accept that we really do need action, if not this day, then at least before 44 days are up from when the Prime Minister took office?
I can only repeat the point that the Prime Minister has been in office for only 31 days; he has had a hugely demanding agenda to deal with, not least on the economic side. He has made clear that he is appointing an independent adviser. That process is in hand; noble Lords need to give us some rope.
My Lords, the Minister has told the House that the delay in appointing an independent adviser has not interfered with the existing ongoing investigations. Nevertheless, do the Government not understand the damage being done to the credibility of government and the democratic process by not having an independent adviser?
My Lords, the machinery of government goes on. As I explained in my Statement, managing ministerial interests, including the management of those on the appointment of new Ministers, is continuing with the Permanent Secretaries in the Cabinet Office and with the head of the Civil Service. I do not think there is a lot more that we can do than appoint an independent adviser of the right kind. As somebody who has worked in many different parts of the British state and business, I know that it is important to take time to make appointments of this sort. We need somebody experienced and credible who wins the trust of the Prime Minister, who is ultimately responsible.
My Lords, can the Minister throw a little light on what seems to me, at any rate, a pretty opaque process? Is there a job description for this new job and is it publicly available? Was the post advertised so that people could apply for it? What is the salary or payment attached to it? All these things would be normal for making the most junior of appointments in the Civil Service or relating to the Civil Service. For this very senior post, therefore, perhaps we could be told whether people have been independently applying for the job. How many people have been considered by the Government but turned the job down? I am sure that all these points would be of great interest to us all to understand precisely how the Government go about this business.
It is a prime ministerial appointment. The postholder is required to observe the seven principles of public life and helps the Prime Minister on Ministers’ interests and on investigations of alleged breaches of the Ministerial Code. It would be unusual for the details of a confidential appointment process to be published, but I can assure the noble Lord that work is in hand and I look forward to announcing the name of the new independent adviser once appointed.
May I suggest to the Minister that her inability to answer any of the questions asked by the noble Lord does not encourage confidence in this process? More excellent candidates would be likely to come forward and confidence in the process would be enhanced if the Government would commit to accepting the advice of the independent adviser when it is given on these important matters of integrity. Will the Government do that?
The noble Lord is trying to push me into a different direction but, like my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne, I am keeping to the same answer. That is because I completely believe that this independent ethics adviser has to be appointed by the Prime Minister and has to be accountable to Parliament. It is important that we stick to that principle. People who are going to take up this important post will understand that, but they will also want to ensure that they have the confidence and trust of our Prime Minister.
(1 year, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate and thank my noble friend Lord Moylan for his general point about the purpose and effect of the Bill; it was a point well made. I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, that we need to restore trust in procurement. I will come on in a minute to explain what we are doing to avoid a repetition of the VIP lane problems.
I shall speak first to the government amendments. The Bill strengthens existing obligations on conflicts of interest, and I think everyone will agree that it is crucial that the requirements are clear. I am therefore tabling Amendment 116 to Clause 78(4), which will avoid a contracting authority being required to address all circumstances that a reasonable person “might” consider a conflict, a potentially impossible feat. Instead, the Bill will require the authority to address those circumstances the authority believes “likely” to cause a reasonable person to consider there to be a conflict.
I do not accept that this is a problem. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, spoke on this issue, and it is always good to have her challenge. This amendment narrows the scope of the obligation, but in a way that makes it deliverable. Sensible, practical ways of doing things are an issue that I have been concerned about, and when I get feedback on these points, we try to make changes.
Part 10 of the Bill allows Ministers to undertake investigations of contracting authorities’ compliance with the Act and issue recommendations that contracting authorities must have regard to when considering how to comply. Without government Amendment 139, Ministers could investigate the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the devolved Administration equivalents, which we believe would create a constitutional impropriety.
Government Amendment 153 ensures that a Minister of the Crown may issue statutory guidance, as a result of a procurement investigation, to Northern Ireland departments only with the consent of a Northern Ireland department, in order to be consistent with the requirement for consent from Welsh Ministers.
The Bill has improved obligations regarding conflicts of interest that apply to all procurement procedures, including direct award. I accept that concern remains over conflicts of interest in Covid procurement, partly because of the history we have all been debating, and these are being addressed by the Government. The concerns expressed from a public procurement perspective are around failings in due diligence and contract management. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, eloquently raised some of these issues on Monday, and I am very glad he found our letter useful. That letter is of course in the Lords Library.
I reassure noble Lords that the Department of Health and Social Care is continuing to investigate contracts and to work through resolution processes with companies that provided PPE which cannot be used. There is a confidentiality issue, as we have heard several times, but I appreciate that there is a desire for more specific information on this. That is why I will be raising it with Health Ministers, as the noble Lord has mentioned. However, I hope I can also reassure the Committee in relation to this group of amendments.
Amendment 72, a key amendment in this group, has been tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, to help prevent the future use of parliamentary VIP lanes for public contracts. I do not believe the amendment is right or necessary, as I will explain. The Bill contains safeguards ensuring that if a conflict of interest puts a supplier at an unfair advantage, and if steps to mitigate cannot avoid that advantage, the supplier must be excluded. That is laid out clearly in Clause 77(3). Noble Lords should note that this is not at the contracting authority’s discretion; it “must” exclude in those circumstances.
The noble Lord asked what we are doing to prevent VIP lanes in future. Perhaps it is worth reiterating two or three points for the convenience of the Committee. Yes, we will be preventing VIP lanes in future. Our direct award provisions have clear and narrow parameters for use. They include new transparency obligations, requiring contracting authorities to publish a notice before making a direct award, and retain obligations to publish contract details once awarded. So we are getting sunlight and transparency.
Conflicts provisions also make a clear requirement in relation to conflicts assessments which are applicable to direct award. If a situation like Covid-19 were to occur again—I heartily hope it will not—pursuant to Clause 40, the Government could set out in advance what types of direct awards were required to address the situation, meaning advance transparency to the market and suppliers. Finally, the equal treatment obligation in Clauses 2 and 3 will ensure that VIP lanes cannot happen again.
The conflicts of interest provisions in the Bill are intentionally broad to capture any person who influences a decision made by or on behalf of a contracting authority, and cover direct and indirect interests. Furthermore, outside the Procurement Bill, the ministerial and Civil Service codes provide that conflicts of interest must be avoided in the exercise of official duties. Elected officials in local government also need to adhere to the rules around keeping a register of interests—as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said, this is also in relation to such things as corruption. As we know, parliamentarians also have to register all their interests.
I meant a noble friend. We intend to issue guidance recommending that contracting authorities include provisions allowing spot checks on the payment performance of supply chain members through their terms and conditions. This does not need to be done in legislation; we are currently exploring options to include it in the model government contract and terms and conditions. As I have made clear throughout, digital tech is integral to these reforms, as the noble Lord said, and we will use it.
I apologise for speaking like this, but I feel passionately that we have learned from the past and that it is important not to overreact to past problems. I have felt this in many areas that I have dealt with in my long life. I respectfully request that the noble Lord withdraws his amendment and the other noble Lords do not move theirs.
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, which is a continuation of what we have spoken about in Committee and on Report. It is about ensuring that, if the Bill—which concerns spending billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money—is to go through, trust, fairness and integrity are central to everything that happens and every penny of taxpayers’ money spent. Every amendment in this group is about that.
I have listened intently and diligently to what the Minister said on my Amendment 72, but the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, made a very important point. In answer to my noble friend Lord Fox, Clause 40 gives exactly the same powers that previous Ministers have had through statutory instruments, and this will get us to the same potential mess that the VIP lanes got us to with PPE. I note everything that the Minister said, but Clause 40 could do away with nearly everything in the Bill because it gives the Government unfettered discretion to set up a fast-track lane, as we have seen before. Giving that amount of power to a Minister in a time of crisis, when all power reverts to the Minister and those who are close can have privileged access to contracts, as we have seen, means that I wish to test the opinion of the House on this occasion.
My Lords, forgive me; I thought I could move this amendment formally too. I try to find a sensible and reliable pathway through, as your Lordships know. I look forward to debating this group, which discusses the single digital platform and transparency.
Transparency has been central to the development of this Bill, and it should be noted that there is a significant extension to transparency under the regime. The publication of documents and notices that follow the award stage will allow interested parties to see how contracts are being implemented. While we have stated publicly that it was always the Government’s intention to create a central digital platform to host this data, we acknowledge the concerns raised by noble Lords during Committee around the importance of the online platform. Amendment 129 therefore creates a new duty requiring a Minister of the Crown to provide an online system for the purpose of publishing notices, documents and other information under this Act.
In addition, the duty requires that the platform has to be accessible to people with disabilities—a point we were debating on Monday—and provide access to procurement information that is published under the Act, free of charge. This means everyone will have access to public procurement data and can track contracts as they progress through the commercial lifecycle from tender to award and delivery. Citizens will be able to scrutinise contracting authority decisions; suppliers will be able to identify new opportunities to bid and collaborate; and buyers will be able to analyse the market and benchmark their performance against others, for example on their spend with SMEs.
In addition to the principal amendment, Amendment 132 is a technical amendment which removes an existing statutory power as this platform is expected to be delivered through common law powers. Since becoming the Minister responsible for this Bill, I have been keen to ensure that it strikes the right balance between transparency and not imposing undue burdens on contracting authorities. Contracting authorities will continue to be bound by the obligation to publish opportunities for all advertised procurements that are above a threshold of £12,000 for central government authorities or £30,000 for others. This will ensure that there is a high degree of transparency for SMEs, so that they can bid.
However, at the other end of the commercial process, the Bill introduces additional transparency requirements after the award of the contract. I have reflected on these, and Amendments 78, 80 and 104 all seek to raise the original threshold for the publication of contract key performance indicators, public contracts and modifications to a public contract from £2 million to £5 million. This will reduce the administrative requirements for contracting authorities while ensuring transparency of the public sector’s larger contracts. I am pleased to say that these amendments have been welcomed by the Local Government Association in the briefing note it published on 25 November.
I will turn to the other amendments tabled in this group in closing, having heard the points raised by noble Lords. Meanwhile, I beg to move Amendment 78.
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 130 to government Amendment 129. Many of us will be pleased that the Minister has decided to put the new online system for procurement information on the face of the Bill. At the same time, however, we need some assurance that it will be fit for purpose and achieve the objectives set for it, otherwise the Government seem to have carte blanche to construct whatever system they see fit to inflict on the vendor community, without any required standards or reporting duty. Let us face it: even the modest database under the Subsidy Control Act is subject to a form of reporting duty, and this system will be of far greater significance.
The amendment in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Fox is designed to provide assurance but in very simple terms. There would be the requirement for a report, first, on the performance standards expected and, secondly, on the standards achieved in the relevant period, including metrics on satisfaction and the accessibility experience of stakeholders. This is a modest proposal; how can the Minister possibly argue against it?
My Lords, I have some amendments following on from the government amendments. They are simple probing amendments on the figure that the Government have come up with in their amendments. Amendment 79 seeks to delete from Clause 49 the figure of “£2” and insert “£3”. All I am doing here and in my further two amendments is trying to probe where the figure that the Government put into their amendments came from. I appreciate that in her introduction the Minister said that a lot of this was based on reducing admin requirements and addressing concerns raised by the Local Government Association, for example, but it seems quite a big jump. We are seeking to understand why the threshold has jumped from £2 million to £5 million. If the Minister could give some explanation as to where the figure came from, we would be very grateful.
I welcome government Amendment 129 on setting up the online system. That was raised by a number of noble Lords and discussed at length in Committee, so it is good that the Government have acted and produced this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, raised the important point that anything that is introduced has to be seen to be fit for purpose, so again it would be very helpful if the Minister could provide noble Lords with assurance as to how the system will work. If there is no annual report on the operation of the system, what is the overview process? How is it being assessed and monitored to ensure that it is fit for purpose?
I shall comment very briefly on the two amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. She introduced them clearly and succinctly, as she always does, for which I am very grateful. I am aware that the LGA had concerns about these areas, as it raised them with us, so I thank her for tabling the amendments. They address a very legitimate concern, so I hope the Minister has listened and will revisit this area of the Bill.
My Lords, Amendments 79, 81 and 105 have been tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, to amend to £3 million the financial threshold above which contracting authorities would be required to publish contracts and contract modifications, and set and publish KPIs. The government amendments raise these thresholds to £5 million. The intention of this is to reduce the administrative burden on contracting authorities, while still providing increased transparency on larger contracts. Redacting contracts for publication where they contain commercially sensitive information is particularly burdensome for smaller contracting authorities, requiring detailed and costly checking by legal teams that they may not have or expensive legal advisers.
Where does the figure come from? I do not know exactly; that is the honest answer. I was offered options of £50 million, £10 million and £5 million. I chose £5 million because that is quoted in the Sourcing Playbook, which seemed a reasonable point. I believe that a threshold of £5 million balances the benefits of transparency with the costs and burdens of implementation.
The higher threshold in the government amendment has been welcomed by the Local Government Association. We want the arrangements to work, so we will monitor them carefully. We have powers to change the thresholds if we need to do so—for example, to bring in extra contracts as the system grows and matures—and if analysis of the new data gathered allows us to better understand how to ensure that the obligations are effective and proportionate; or, to go the other way, if we end up with a lot of difficulties. It seems a reasonable approach.
Amendment 130 tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Clement Jones and Lord Fox, seeks to require the Minister of the Crown to report annually on performance standards and feedback on the online system, including stakeholder satisfaction and accessibility. The data on the platform will be available in real time, and interested parties—of which there will be many—will be able to access information by using the tools available on the platform and by downloading the data for external analysis, such as statistics on the publication of notices and the progress of contracts. The platform will be accessible, as I have said, and will comply with the relevant legislation, including the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018, on which I am not, I fear, an expert. The Government are continuously monitoring the existing online platform that supports noticing under the current regulations and will continue to do so under the new regime and make changes as they are needed, so we are not inclined, on this occasion, to write in a review clause.
What mechanism will there be for feedback from vendors and so on?
We have talked several times about the PRU and the role it will have in looking systematically at things. It seems to me that one of the main sources of information for it will be this online system. It has the merit of largely being an all-singing and all-dancing system. I will come on to my noble friend Lady Noakes’s amendment in a minute. I think, therefore, that this is going to work well, but if the noble Lord discovers in the fullness of time that it is not doing so, I am sure he will come back and ask the Cabinet Office what it is up to.
Amendments 166 and 168 in the names of my noble friends Lady Noakes and Lord Moylan have been tabled to remove provisions in two pieces of transport legislation, both relating to contracts for subsidised public passenger transport services. The first repeals two subsections from Section 89 of the Transport Act 1985—that is a long time ago—dealing with the obligation to invite tenders for such contracts. This change would remove the requirement to issue invitations to tender individually to anyone who has given a written notice requesting this. The second amendment revokes two regulations from the Service Subsidy Agreements (Tendering) (England) Regulations 2002, dealing with information to be published regarding accepted tenders and where no tenders are accepted. These amendments were raised in Committee and, while both rightly seek to reduce the burden on contracting authorities, there are further considerations for the Department for Transport.
Not all transport is covered by the Bill, and we have carved out certain public passenger transport services under Schedule 2. The Department for Transport is reviewing procurements that fall under this separate regime as part of its review of retained EU law and its legislation more widely. It is important that what we do in our schedules does not impinge on that review. We are therefore unable to accept my noble friend Lady Noakes’s repeals today, but I have asked my officials to work with the Department for Transport to see whether it is possible to sort this out and bring forward a government amendment in the Commons to address her concerns. In the light of those various assurances, I respectfully request that noble Lords do not press their amendments.
My Lords, I am grateful for the debate on this issue, and I hope that the House will forgive me if I take a little time to address the important matters that have been raised. As always, there has been much emotion, and there have been some strong speeches, for which I am grateful. However, I need to take the House back to the Bill.
On Amendment 91, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, on forced organ harvesting, I pay tribute, as I have done before, to the tenacity with which the noble Lord has pursued this important issue. It is right that this abhorrent practice is exposed and confronted. The Government have taken action, both at home and abroad, to make clear that complicity in the abuses associated with the overseas organ trade will not be tolerated. As the noble Lord said, the Health and Care Act made it an offence to travel outside the UK to purchase an organ, and the Government have urged the World Health Organization to consider the findings of the China Tribunal on organ harvesting. I confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that the hospital he referred to in China will not carry out organ transplants. Moreover, it did not receive any government funding.
However, I am afraid it remains the case that the Procurement Bill is not the right place to take action on this issue. Every exclusion ground, whether mandatory or discretionary, must be considered for every supplier on every procurement—that is thousands of contracts every year. Each additional ground will add a burden for contracting authorities that, however marginal, will add up to a significant amount of time and money overall. I am reminded of my noble friend Lord Maude’s comments on Monday about the risk of trying to include too many wider public policy objectives in the Bill. If we add this, what else do we need to add? This is why I have sought to limit the grounds, particularly those that, like this one, require an assessment of factual circumstances, to those where there is a major and particular risk to public procurement. I am not aware of any evidence that any supplier to the UK public sector has been involved in forced organ harvesting.
Moreover, the scope of the proposed exclusion ground is very broad, covering not just organ harvesting but also any
“unethical activities relating to human tissue”.
The third limb of the amendment permits exclusion simply for
“dealing in any device or equipment or services relating to conduct”
covered by the first two limbs. This would seem to extend so broadly as to cover even the use of ordinary surgical equipment, where the supplier might have had no prior knowledge that it was previously used for the prohibited purposes. For these reasons, I am concerned that this ground would be extremely difficult for contracting authorities to apply in practice. While I sympathise with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I cannot see a way of including organ harvesting in the Bill, although I am glad that we have focused on it this evening.
I think that would be extremely helpful. I am grateful to the noble Lord.
I turn finally to Amendment 141 tabled by my noble friend Lady Stroud and others. I am grateful to her for tabling it and for the debate today. The amendment covers two distinct issues: supply chain resilience and modern slavery. I congratulate her and others on all they have done in recent years to promote awareness and encourage change on these important issues—a great deal has changed in the last 15 years. I am also grateful to her for a very useful meeting on the amendment, to help me understand how it might work in practice. While I admire her campaigning on modern slavery, discussion revealed the impracticality of some of the details of her amendment, as I shall try to explain.
The Government have publicly stated the importance of strong and resilient supply chains to our economic and national security. The Ukraine war and the shortages and economic challenges it has precipitated have really brought that home, and the decision announced last week in relation to ownership of the Newport microchip plant demonstrates how seriously these issues are being taken. As the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said, our plan for transparency and the new online platform will help us to assess the risk. Through our trade agreements and market access work, we support British businesses and contracting authorities to build more diverse and resilient supply chains.
Supply chain resilience considerations are now embedded in the work of every government department. A global supply chains directorate has also been established in the Department for International Trade to strengthen the supply of critical goods to the UK. I will be happy to facilitate a meeting with the Minister responsible, so that my noble friend can bring her knowledge and challenge to that important work: I believe that would be helpful in progressing matters, having spoken to her about these issues. Strong and resilient supply chains have a diverse base, which relies on an effective trading system. I know this from my own practical experience of diversifying retail supply from China to Vietnam, Bangladesh and Ethiopia. As far as possible, this means promoting a market-led approach to supply chain resilience and encouraging a range of import sources.
From time to time, there can be a crisis or an issue, such as modern slavery, in any market and with almost any supplier, so we need options. The appropriate proportion of supply from an overseas market can go up or down, but the proposal in the amendment to set dependency thresholds across all categories of public procurement would be a major exercise and a market-distorting measure.
While I welcome recent trends towards western manufacturing in certain strategic industries, such as battery technology, the UK continues to trade with China to support British jobs and growth in non-strategic areas and keep inflation down—which noble Lords do not seem to be worrying about—but I emphasise that we will uphold our values and ensure that our national security, freedom and democracy are protected as we work with allies to hold China to its international commitments.
Before the noble Baroness leaves that point, it is important to put on the record that we currently have a trade deficit with the People’s Republic of China of £40 billion. Dependency, resilience, and the destruction of our own manufacturing base because we are outcompeted through the use of slave labour and goods that are priced much more cheaply than people on a living wage can produce in the United Kingdom—these are issues that the Government need to take rather more seriously than she has just done.
I do take these issues seriously and I commented on diversification, which I have personally been involved in. It is because there is a large amount of trade with China that this cannot be changed overnight—and there might not be a case to do so in non-strategic areas. Inflation is very important and the opening up of Asia has historically been helpful in this country. The Prime Minister said in his speech that we must be realistic and clear about China, but that obviously does not mean we should abandon our values.
It goes without saying that practices such as slavery and human trafficking have no place in government supply chains. We have shown our determination to address modern slavery in many ways, including in the Bill. I draw my noble friend’s attention to the fact that under Clause 27, contracting authorities must ask suppliers to provide details of their intended supply chain for the contract. Authorities can consider whether a subcontractor is subject to a ground for exclusion such as modern slavery. If they conclude that this is the case and that it has failed to self-clean, the lead supplier itself is liable to be excluded from the procurement if it does not take the opportunity to remove the subcontractor from its supply chain. However, we must recognise the complexity of the issue.
My noble friend’s amendment says that
“The Secretary of State must … make provision”
in procurements and contracts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking, and that this is to be done by secondary legislation, but I fear that the amendment fails to reflect the sheer complexity of the matter. Regulations cannot specify precisely which award criteria might be appropriate to address the risk of slavery and human trafficking in every different procurement: this depends on the nature of the particular contract being tendered, including what is being purchased and the likely nature and location of supply chains. The right vehicle to help contracting authorities address slavery and human trafficking risks is in guidance, and there is already comprehensive guidance setting out the action that departments must take. This is 46 pages long and includes sections on managing risks in new procurements, assessing existing contracts, taking action when victims of modern slavery are identified, supply chain mapping, useful tools, training and questions to ask.
My noble friend will know that I have committed to put the matters addressed in the guidance on a statutory footing as part of the national procurement policy statement, provided for under Clause 12 of the Bill. This would mean that all contracted authorities would have to have regard to that guidance, which I think the noble Baroness can see is a significant step forward.
Finally, I note that the draft provisions in the amendment go significantly beyond the language in the Health and Care Act with which it was my noble friend’s stated intention to bring the Bill into alignment. Amendment 141 also creates a strong expectation that the Minister will make regulations, and that they will cover the matters referred to in the amendment, so it is effectively a must.
I know that people are looking forward to getting to the end of this debate, so I will not go through the problems with proposed new subsection (5)(d) to (f), but I will ask noble Lords to note that this will be burdensome to contracting authorities as well as small businesses. I know that my noble friend does not much care about the latter, but there might be wider concern about the gumming-up of contracting authorities in this matter when we have already made arrangements in the Bill to give modern slavery much more focus, and have added that to the relevant schedules.
We believe that proposed new subsection (5)(f), for example, is disproportionate and contrary to the open principles of our procurement regime, as well as to the interests of efficiency, value for money and common sense. Moreover, countries and regions that pose risks change over time, and that is another reason to use guidance, and not this Bill, on this matter.
Finally, I say to my noble friend Lord Blencathra that we should remember that the new regime will give broader exclusion powers to contracting authorities—he referenced Huawei—which will have primary responsibility for applying the exclusions regime.
In closing, I respectfully ask the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, to withdraw his amendment, but I emphasise the progress that this Bill has made, and I therefore find some of the comments on this group a little disappointing.
Just before the Minister sits down, so we understand, because some may want to press this to a Division, I ask: what would the Government’s intent be if this Bill was to pass with a debarment list, particularly with regard to companies that the Government no longer wish to deploy their surveillance equipment in the UK? Would such companies go on the debarment list, or would it just be down to guidance to determine whether such equipment is purchased by non-central government bodies?
If the noble Lord looks at Schedule 6, which is the criteria for the debarment list, he will see that it includes modern slavery and security, so there is no reason why those could not be used in an appropriate way. I hope that helps.
My question was: is it the Government’s intention to use the debarment list for these types of companies, or is it still going to be down to guidance?
They are mandatory grounds for exclusion, so if you find that you have a security issue—as we obviously found in relation to Hikvision—those become mandatory exclusions. On modern slavery, again, they are mandatory exclusions. Clearly, if a company is able to self-clean and has shown that it has changed the arrangements, it will not necessarily stay on the debarment list. I do not want to mislead the noble Lord.
My Lords, this excellent debate has been both moving and profound, because it has dealt with horrific human rights abuses in China but has also attempted to develop an argument about our strategic relationship with that nation.
The Minister said that she was disappointed by some of the remarks. She gave us a full reply, which I am very grateful for, but I too was rather disappointed by her response. Essentially, she said that our concerns are legitimate but that this Bill is not the right place for them to be expressed. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and my noble friend Lord Coaker both suggested, this is a Procurement Bill, setting the regime for government procurement for a number of years ahead. Where better to place values—not just the issue of the lowest common denominator price—than in this Bill, which sets the parameters under which billions of pounds are going to be spent by government and government agencies over the next decade?
The arguments that the Minister put forward were technical, and the Government could have come back and tabled their own amendments, which might have met the technical issues she faces. However, ultimately, the Government have set their face against expressing some profound values in this legislation, but I think that we should do so. I would like to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 91.
My Lords, both the amendments in this group ask for clarification and information from the Minister on the exact status of the trade agreements and how they are going to operate. I think the loophole that the noble Lord is trying to close is something that we need to think about very seriously, because we do not want to have trade agreements that then start to unravel. That is one of the big concerns around this.
In Committee, we had a quite extensive debate around this. I asked the Minister a specific question on Schedule 7 and I thank her for her detailed response, which I think it is worth drawing to the attention of the House. Schedule 7 says that a discretionary exclusion ground applies to a supplier whether the conduct occurred in or outside the United Kingdom. The question I wanted confirmed was whether Schedule 7 covered procurement opportunities that came through trade agreements.
The response from the Minister was that the conduct overseas, as referred to in Schedule 7, does cover anything that happens within procurement coming out of a trade agreement. I was very grateful for her clarification on this and thought that I should draw it to the attention of the House. It is a very helpful clarification of the remit of the Procurement Bill as far as trade agreements are concerned. However, it would be helpful if the Minister was able to provide reassurance, explanation and clarification on the questions raised by the amendments from the noble Lords, Lord Purvis and Lord Lansley, so that we all know exactly where we are, particularly around the Australia and New Zealand trade agreement.
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this short debate, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for repeating the advice we received on the application of Schedule 7 so that it sits on the face of Hansard. I hope the other things I have to say will help with her general understanding of the interplay between the trade and procurement Bills under consideration.
I will start by responding to my noble friend Lord Lansley. I understand the point he makes in his Amendment 167: in the coming months there may be important amendments to the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill that will be designed to survive into the new regime. However, I respectfully suggest that an open-ended preservation of unspecified parts of that Bill, as his amendment proposes, is not the right way to deliver what is needed.
As he knows, I also think it would be a legislatively curious way of going about things. I have been consistent in saying that when we are certain of the amendments needed as a result of that other Bill, we will consider the provisions in the Procurement Bill and the best way to retain any such obligations. As I understand it, the timing should allow for this. Thanks to the eloquence of my noble friend Lord Lansley, we are well aware of the problem. Of course, the Government will have due respect for the expressed will of your Lordships’ House.
The noble Lord, Lord Fox, asked about contracting authorities. My response is that they just need to follow the provisions in the Bill. That will mean they are compliant with the trade agreements. I hope this gives the noble Lord some reassurance: they do not need to familiarise themselves with each individual agreement when they are engaged in procurement. If he finds that confusing, I am sure we can talk further on another occasion.
Amendment 127, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Purvis and Lord Fox, has the effect that a contracting authority cannot be considered to discriminate
“if it takes into account environmental, social and labour considerations”
in dealing with a treaty state supplier. To accept this would create the opportunity for UK contracting authorities to actively discriminate against overseas suppliers. That could place the UK in breach of our international trade agreements, including the GPA. I am sure noble Lords will agree that that would not be acceptable, but I hope they will take some comfort from the fact that the Procurement Bill already achieves the main objective of this amendment. It includes flexibility to structure procurements in a way that furthers these ends. For example, Clause 22 is drafted widely enough that these matters can be used by contracting authorities as part of the basis for determining a winning bid, as long as it is non-discriminatory.
The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, who I think is not in his place, is a great expert in this area. He was concerned that some trade agreements refer to environmental and social criteria and some do not. I can reassure noble Lords that, where a trade agreement does not expressly permit these criteria, it does not mean that a contracting authority in the UK cannot take them into account. The Bill and the UK’s international commitments allow contracting authorities to continue to apply these criteria as they have for many years.
I think the Minister has just confirmed the point I was making. On that basis, contracting authorities need to have knowledge of what is in each different agreement in order to start to discriminate in the way she has just described. If it is in some trade agreements and not in others, surely there will be different options. As the Minister said, my noble friend Lord Purvis is our expert on this. He was concerned about this, and therefore I think I am concerned about it.
I think the point I made is that contracting authorities need to follow the provisions of the Bill and then they will be compliant with the trade agreements. I think the whole point is that we are trying not to require them to familiarise themselves with every trade agreement, and my advice is that that works. The time is late. I hope I have managed at least to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and I respectfully urge the noble Lord, Lord Fox, to withdraw his amendment.
As noble Lords can see by the vexed look across my brow, I am both out of my depth and no comprende. On that basis, that is two good reasons to step back. I think probably there is another conversation when the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, is back in the country to go over this because I trust his instincts on these things. On that basis—
I should perhaps make it clear that I do not think this is something we would expect to come back at Third Reading, but of course there will be further discussions in another place.
That is completely understood. I do not think we will be bringing back an amendment. Do not worry. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 127.
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberThat the Bill be considered on Report in the following order: Clauses 1 and 2, Schedules 1 and 2, Clause 3, Schedule 3, Clauses 4 and 5, Schedule 4, Clauses 6 to 39, Schedule 5, Clauses 40 to 54, Schedules 6 and 7, Clauses 55 to 69, Schedule 8, Clauses 70 to 83, Schedule 9, Clauses 84 to 108, Schedule 10, Clauses 109 and 110, Schedule 11, Clauses 111 to 119, Title.
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, as we begin Report, I start by thanking noble Lords for their contributions in Committee, and for the lively debate there. For those in the House coming to it fresh today, I say that this is an important Bill which follows two years of hard work and preparation, which I have the honour of taking over from my noble friend Lord True, who now leads this House.
Each year, £300 billion is spent on public procurement and we seek to make it quicker, simpler, more transparent and better able to meet the UK’s needs than the current patchwork of former EU rules, while remaining compliant with our international obligations. There will be a central Cabinet Office online platform to bring in new players, to improve value for money and to accelerate spending with SMEs. There will also be a comprehensive training programme for those involved in all the new rules and conventions—for example, on managing conflicts of interest. It is, however, a very technical Bill, and I am sorry that we had to withdraw a number of government amendments tabled in Committee to allow further discussion. This was largely successful, so we will come first to a number of amendments in my name, most of which were withdrawn on day one in Committee. As we go through, there will be further technical amendments and other amendments to respond to points made in Committee, notably to stimulate economic growth and to reduce burdens on SMEs. I thank noble Lords for their patience with the sheer number of amendments.
Amendment 1 and the amendments consequential on it introduce new technical definitions of “procurement” and “covered procurement”. I know these concepts caused some concern in Committee, so I will try to clarify matters. “Covered procurement” means those procurements that are covered by the vast majority of the provisions in the Bill. They are mostly procurements by contracting authorities, above the relevant thresholds for goods, services and works, which are not exempted from the Bill. These are the procurements which most of us will have had in mind during our deliberations in Committee.
However, the Bill also covers some aspects of procurements which go beyond this, which is why we have a wider definition of “procurement”, meaning any procurement. That allows the Bill to make some limited provision in relation to matters such as below-threshold procurements—for example, in Part 6—and notably to comply with international rules or certain treaties. I understand that the term “covered procurement” may seem unusual, but it is one included in our international procurement agreements, including the GPA—the WTO agreement on government procurement—and familiar to the procurement community.
Amendment 1, and a number of other government amendments, streamline fundamental concepts that are relied on throughout the Bill and will improve the readability and consistency of the legislation. Amendments 2, 5 and 6 recast the definition of “contracting authorities” to ensure that the right bodies are covered. We are committed to a definition that is broadly consistent in effect with both the existing regulatory scheme and with our international commitments under free trade agreements. Feedback from our ongoing dialogue with stakeholders has indicated that the effect of certain wording differences could lead to some bodies being incorrectly brought within, or excluded from, the scope of the rules. I am grateful for these views, particularly those from the Local Government Association, as they will help to ensure correct application. I am also grateful for its constructive approach to the Bill, which represents a big change for its members, and we appreciated its input.
The amended definition removes the reference to
“functions of a public nature”,
as this does not align with the existing definition. It makes clear that the notion of contracting authority oversight can include oversight by more than one authority. Lastly, it ensures that certain bodies that are publicly owned but operate commercially can operate outside the procurement regime.
Amendment 187 ensures that educational establishments are fully and appropriately excluded from the rules on below-threshold contracts, as well as those relating to implied payment terms in public contracts, payment compliance notices and reporting on payments made under public contracts. This mirrors the approach taken in the current procurement rules and ensures that burdens on low-value contracts in the education area are applied in a proportionate fashion. Amendments 98 to 102, 117, 119, 191, 193, 197, 201 and 202 are consequential.
Amendments 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28 provide direction to contracting authorities when a mixed contract involves two or more different elements which could each classify it as a “special regime” contract. We expect that such situations will be rare, but could arise occasionally. Our amendments clarify which regime will apply to their mixed contracts in such circumstances by discouraging unrelated requirements being combined in one procurement. I hope that sentence is clear. More importantly, we must also ensure that the rules concerning mixed contracts are compliant with our international trade agreement obligations.
This group also includes other minor changes, including Amendment 7, which ensures that thresholds are applied properly to frameworks, and Amendment 8, which ensures that frameworks for the future award of exempted contracts only are also exempt. Frameworks involving a mixture of elements covered by both the Bill and the forthcoming healthcare procurement regulations will be subject to the same basic tests as set out in Clauses 4 and 9 on mixed contracts, which determine which rules will apply. This is important to prevent abuse of the exemption provisions; it also includes Amendment 185, which corrects a mistaken reference to a power for Northern Ireland departments, which unfortunately does not exist.
Amendment 170 is a technical adjustment to Clause 111 to make it clear that any regulations made to disapply the Bill to procurements in scope of the forthcoming healthcare procurement regulations can be made whether or not the procurement regulations are yet in force. Finally, Amendments 194, 195 and 196 amend the index of defined expressions in Clause 115.
I thank noble Lords for their patience, and will turn to the amendments tabled by other noble Lords when I have heard from them. I beg to move.
My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 3 and 173. I thank the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord True, for responding to my questions, in private meetings but also at previous stages of the Bill, about why the NHS is treated differently from every other part of the public procurement sector covered by the Bill. The problem is that I have not yet heard a clear answer to that; nor, indeed, did those noble Lords who took part in the Health and Care Act during its time here get a clear answer from the Health Minister as to why this was proposed. More recently, in Committee, the Minister said that it was because only clinical services would be covered by these special arrangements for the NHS. I will come in a minute to the reasons for my concerns that that is not the case, but I start by saying very simply that Amendment 3 puts the NHS in the Bill, in the definition of a public body that has to observe the details of regulation under the Bill.
Moving on to the practical problems, the key issue is what is said in the National Health Service Act 2006 and the Health and Care Act 2022, which attempts to amend it. The specific amendment has not been enacted yet, but we can all assume, with the permission of the House, that it is this Bill that is holding that up. The Health and Care Act adds new Section 12ZB to the National Health Service Act, which says:
“Regulations may make provision in relation to the processes to be followed and objectives to be pursued … in the procurement of (a) health care services … and (b) other goods or services”.
The problem is that the new section goes on to say:
“Regulations under subsection (1) must, in relation to the procurement of all health care services … make provision for the purposes of ensuring transparency; ensuring fairness; ensuring that compliance can be verified; managing conflicts of interest”.
That is a very different bar of compliance than the Government want to see for every other part of the public sector covered by the Bill. At the strategic level, it will be enormously helpful to understand why the Government feel it is appropriate for the NHS not to be included, but my practical problem is that we have relied somewhat on the assurances of Ministers at the Dispatch Box that only clinical services would be caught by the new SIs under the Health and Care Act and the NHS Act 2006. I have just read out the parts that show that is absolutely not the case. In fact, there is a catch-all in “other goods or services”. So, while we spent a little time in Committee trying to discuss where the boundaries are, it seems to me that there are no such boundaries, and that leaves me very greatly concerned about how this will work in practice.
I have tabled Amendment 173 because if Amendment 3 is carried, Clause 111 is not needed. There is also an argument that if, for any reason, Amendment 3 is not carried, Amendment 173 will stand in its own right, but the two are inextricably linked. These two amendments are saying that the NHS should be covered in the Bill. I end by saying to the Minister that, despite the many amendments from noble Lords all around the House, I think everyone agrees that the Bill is better than the procurement arrangements we have had in the past, particularly in attempting to get transparency and accountability. The problem is that the arrangements for the NHS are not visible; they are SIs at the discretion of any Secretary of State for Health, and we have not even seen those in draft yet. I hope the Minister can give me some very clear reassurances or explanations, otherwise I may have to test the opinion of the House later.
My Lords, I thank the Minister and her predecessor for their engagement with us and other noble Lords on this Bill as it made its progress through your Lordships’ House. I join with other noble Lords in saying to the Minister that we all believe, from where I am speaking, that this is a great improvement, and the Bill will make a big difference; we are generally very supportive of it. It is important, as other noble Lords have done, to start with those remarks to set the context for this discussion and those which will follow.
I do not want to speak for very long, but I will start with Amendment 3, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I very much support the amendment, which seeks to put on the face of the Bill—for the avoidance of doubt, for the avoidance of the sort of discussion that we are having here this evening and for the avoidance of the sort of discussions that will go on, as to which set of regulations procurement for the NHS comes under—that procurement includes the NHS in Clause 1. The important point, following the excellent speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, was set out in my noble friend Lord Hunt’s question to the Minister, which encapsulated the problem that we are going to have under two sets of regulations.
I thought that my noble friend put the argument very well in his question—and I am going to repeat it—about the sort of thing that will happen without clarification of where we are with respect to procurement. What happens if a procurement contains both clinical and non-clinical parts and services? Which Act and which regulations regime would apply? That encapsulates the problem in one, because the answer is that it will not be clear at all if we carry on with the current two-system regulatory regimes that will operate for the NHS. I am always very practical about these things and, of course, noble Lords will have seen as well that there is actually a clause—Clause 111—that makes it perfectly clear that there is a power for Ministers to disapply, through regulations, this Act in relation to procurement by the NHS in England. Therefore, on the one hand we have the health Act of 2022; on the other hand, we have a Bill going through that, in some sense, is supposed to include the NHS but, in other senses, is not supposed to do so. We do not know where the boundary is going to come between clinical services and goods and services, so there is a whole realm of difficulty and problems.
I said at the beginning of my speech that all of us are supportive of the Bill, but we need to resolve these difficulties. We cannot just say, “Well, the regulations will sort it out”, or “Good sense or common sense will deal with it.” There is a real legislative problem that we should try to resolve before we pass the legislation. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, pointed this out in a couple of important technical amendments. As always, we are thankful to the noble Baroness for trying to improve the Bill and to make suggestions, one of which, I understand, the Government have accepted. That is the sort of spirit in which we take the Bill forward.
Therefore, I hope that the Minister is listening carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, my noble friend Lord Hunt, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, have said. We all noticed that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, was not a supporter of Amendment 2. We say that loudly and clearly so that her future in the Green Party is assured, but Amendment 3 is what the noble Baroness put in, and for some reason it appeared under Amendment 2. We are all very clear which amendment the noble Baroness supports.
The comments made in the short speech by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on government Amendment 34, are extremely important, showing how one word here or there can fundamentally change the Bill. He is quite right to point out that Clause 11 refers not to thresholds but to objectives. What is procurement trying to achieve? As the noble Lord outlined, by inserting “covered”, the Government imply that it is only covered procurement that takes account of the various points that are listed in the Bill. The noble Lord read out four, but I choose just one, to show how important it is that the Government listen to what he has said and think again about moving their Amendment 34. It is acting and being seen to act with integrity. The one thing that you would expect any procurement process to act under, whatever the threshold, whatever the regulations, whatever law it comes under, whether it is for £10 or £10 million, is integrity. Yet as it reads now, the only procurement that this clause will relate to as an objective, if the government amendment is agreed to, is covered procurement. That was the crucial point that the noble Lord made—as an objective. It is not an objective. It is closer to being law, that you are supposed to act openly, honestly and transparently. However, leaving that aside, it is an extremely important point that the noble Lord has made. In full support of what he has said, I hope that the Government have listened to his very well-made points, particularly when he went on to relate them to Clause 12, which seems to be the opposite of that. That point was well made.
The government amendments before us in many ways improve the Bill. I thank the Minister for listening to what was said to her and for trying extremely hard to table amendments that have improved many parts of the Bill. There are important tweaks that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, has pointed out. There is a fundamental point that was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. However, the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and supported by many noble Lords, point to a fundamental choice for us. We must resolve this issue about procurement and the NHS. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, pointed out some of the difficulties that have arisen, but for all of us, clarity, certainty and clearness in legislation is crucial, particularly when it comes to procurement. We have the opportunity to sort this out. I hope that noble Lords will support the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, should she put it to the vote.
My Lords, Amendment 3, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, of Kenardington, and the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, of Hunters Bar, would, as the noble Baroness said, explicitly name the NHS in the definition of a contracting authority. We are also debating Amendment 173, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, added her name, and Amendments 171 and 172, to which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, spoke so eloquently.
There is a concern, which I understand after several meetings with those involved, about the interplay in health between this Bill and the arrangements across the NHS in the light of the Health and Social Care Act. I very much enjoyed the meetings that I had with the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and thank her and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for their kind comments on the Bill more generally, as well as my noble friends Lady Noakes and Lord Lansley. It has been a pleasure to work on this Bill across the House. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for his comments, although we are no longer working together from the Back Benches.
Like most noble Lords, probably, I have listened to what has just been said and am more confused now than when the Minister started. I ask a very simple question: if the Bill applied to NHS procurement, as it does to the rest of the public sector, would it not harmonise the procurement of NHS provision, whether clinical or non-clinical, including social care? That would make it simpler, not just for the procurement body but for organisations that might wish to tender for NHS clinical services.
That is a point, but I did try to explain in my introduction that there was concern during the passage of the Health and Care Act, to which I was not party, that the NHS arrangements—I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is nodding her head. Perhaps she is nodding it negatively.
The important thing the House needs to hear is that during the passage of the Health and Care Act, Members from all sides of your Lordships’ House asked repeatedly why special arrangements were being made for NHS procurement when we knew that there was a Procurement Bill coming down the line and had not seen any detail of it. That is the question we are all waiting to hear the answer to.
I think I have been clear on the background to why it is different. I have also promised that regulations and guidance are being put together and will make very clear the differences: where the NHS rules need to apply and where the Procurement Bill needs to apply. That is the way in which these Bills have been constructed together. There are reasons. Especially on small NHS contracts involving social care, clinical services and so on, it clearly makes a great deal of sense to have a separate regime.
I am sure we will come back to that at the end, but out of courtesy I turn to the other amendments. Amendment 4, tabled by my noble friend Lady Noakes, proposes to rework the notion of control in the definition of a contracting authority in amended Clause 1(3)(b), to be consistent with the notion of a controlled person in Schedule 2. We have looked at this again in dialogue with the concerned stakeholders, notably the Local Government Association.
The meaning of control in Clause 1 is different from that in Schedule 2, and they need to be kept separate. The use of “control” in Clause 1, which sets out the contracting authority definition, is intended to ensure that contracting authorities that have a board where public authorities appoint more than half the members are themselves considered to be contracting authorities. This might include, for example, some centralised procurement authorities.
By contrast, the “controlled person” for the purposes of Schedule 2 is much narrower and intentionally very limited as it is intended to capture only a narrow group of entities, closely owned and controlled by contracting authorities. It requires that the controlling contracting authority is a “parent”, within the meaning of the Companies Act 2006. Although this might cover some of the same ground as majority board appointments, the concept used in Clause 1, it is not the same thing, and the text of the amendment can be satisfied in other ways. There is also a secondary activity threshold, which means that 80% of the activities carried out by the controlled person must be on behalf of its controlling authority. I am afraid that neither factor is appropriate to the contracting authority definition and their inclusion would have the effect of taking many organisations outside the scope of the contracting authority definition.
I recognise that, as my noble friend said, consistency is often desirable, but these terms achieve different aims. It is important that the Procurement Bill covers, as closely as possible, the same scope of bodies as in the existing procurement regulations, both for certainty and continuity for our authorities and to ensure compliance with the definition of a contracting authority in our free trade agreements.
I should, in passing, thank my noble friend Lady Noakes for her Amendment 190, which reflects discussion in Committee and which the Government are glad to support.
Moving on, I come to some of the very wide points made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, although it is possible that some of these will come up again later on Report. It may be disappointing to the noble Lord, but we cannot go into the detail of individual contracts. Where a contract has been found to have underperformed or the PPE provided was not up to standard, the Department of Health and Social Care is working to reach a successful outcome—this includes mediation—for the taxpayer.
Offers for the supply of PPE came from a wide range of people from within government and outside. No matter where they came from, offers went through a robust process of checks and controls led by officials. This included price and quality checks as well as due diligence and credibility. As for Medpro, this is a live issue; we are currently engaged in a mediation process with PPE Medpro and I am therefore unable to comment on the specifics of this contract.
More positively, however, the Covid inquiry will cover procurement and the distribution of key equipment and supplies, including PPE and ventilators. In my view, that is quite right. It will also identify the lessons to be learned from all this and inform preparation for future pandemics across the UK.
I thank the Minister; that is a helpful reply and I am indebted to her. She has referred us to later amendments—I think she is referring to the amendment tabled by her noble friend Lady Stroud in the 10th group, on modern day slavery, which I am supporting—but a number of my questions go much wider than that. I would be appreciative if, between now and our discussion on Wednesday, she could give further consideration to what she can answer, some of which is not covered specifically by the point she has just made about confidentiality. Could she touch on what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is saying now about how the NHS should be caught under the same terms as everything else that she has been arguing? Our failure to do this has been highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and others, and demonstrates an inconsistency in how we handle these things.
I understand. I have tried to answer, although I am obviously somewhat limited by confidentiality. I would also draw the noble Lord’s attention to the Boardman report, of which he is well aware. Nigel Boardman went through the Covid processes and his comments were, on the whole, accepted. As I said, I will look at what the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said and see whether there is anything useful to add before we meet again on Wednesday.
I turn to my Amendment 34 and the comments made by my noble friend Lord Lansley, of Orwell, with whom I have had useful meetings. He is concerned that the procurement objectives in Clause 11 should apply to all procurement, not just to covered procurement. I am afraid I do not agree, as he and I have discussed. This is too wide-ranging and the Clause 11 objectives will not be relevant to the award of all types of non-covered procurement. The concept of procurement is crafted very widely and captures all contracts. For example, it is difficult to see how a contracting authority would be able to apply principles such as having regard to the importance of transparency or the wider public benefit in relation to employment contracts or leasehold agreements exempted under Schedule 2 to the Bill. In addition, it is difficult to see how a contracting authority could have regard to the importance of transparency in a procurement exempted on national security grounds.
My noble friend used the important word “security” in relation to security contracts, but surely Clause 11 and the procurement objectives apply to security contracts that exceed the threshold set in Schedule 1. In what sense is it inappropriate for the objectives or principles set out in Clause 11 to be applied simply because those thresholds fall below about £5 million?
I should reflect further on this. Clearly, some parts of the Bill are carved out. We have discussed this in relation to the NHS and we will discuss it on Wednesday in relation to the Ministry of Defence. We have to be very careful about national security—there is agreement on that across the House. I have been advised that the sheer breadth of Clause 11 would have a damaging effect if we apply this right across the board on procurement, and I am disturbed about that. I am happy to look at that further and talk further to my noble friend Lord Lansley.
We would all be grateful if the noble Baroness reflected further on Clause 11 and government Amendment 34, as she said.
I turn finally to my noble friend Lord Maude, who brought in the importance of social enterprises in the health area, which I was extremely keen to hear about and would like to discuss with him further. It seemed to me, when reflecting on what he said, that the greater flexibility to award contracts—which was behind the Health and Social Care Act and the PSR regulations that were being brought forward—was an argument in favour of the approach that we have set out and for some different arrangements in the NHS. I find myself in the slightly awkward position of trying to defend these different arrangements for the NHS because I am worried about the implications for things similar to those that my noble friend raised.
I think that I have dealt with all these comments. I will reflect further on Amendment 34. It is a bit difficult not to move it—
My Lords, it would be perfectly acceptable to come back to that at Third Reading. I think that the House would accept that.
I am a little rusty, so I was just trying to understand what the possibilities were. I thank noble Lords for clarifying that we have some time to reflect on this; it is extremely helpful. I respectfully ask noble Lords not to press their amendments. I will move the government amendments in my name when we reach them, other than Amendment 34.
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for her introduction to her amendment which was very clearly laid out. Again, I would like to join with other noble Lords who talked about the number of government amendments, not just here but in Committee. People who were here on the first day will probably remember that I was a little bit cross about it. But in response, the Minister has really grappled with our concerns in the lead-up to Report and I appreciate the time that she has spent doing that.
I will be brief. I will just say that we strongly support the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, with her amendment. She clearly laid out why this is important for local authorities and by including her amendment you increase the efficiency of the public sector when it is structuring the way it delivers its services, much of which do not need to include the procurement laws that we see before us. All I would say is that it is important that we can ensure that local authorities and other public sectors bodies within this area can continue to deliver better public services and make savings, as the noble Lord just mentioned, by collaboration, working together and sharing services. That makes eminent sense, and I would hope that the Minister will be able to reflect on that.
My Lords, Amendment 9 tabled by the noble friends Lady Noakes and Lord Moylan—whom I am very glad to see back in this place—seeks to preserve the rules which currently apply to public service collaborations at paragraph 2 and 3 of Schedule 2. It was also very good to hear from my noble friend Lord Greenhalgh with his extensive local government experience.
I agree that the Bill needs to preserve these rules but believe that we have already done so. Paragraph 1(2)—to which the noble Baroness referred—says that a contract is not exempted if the main purpose of the contract could reasonably be supplied under a different contract, and that contract would not itself be an exempted contract. This provision serves to close a loophole where contracts that are mixed—that is that they contain both exempted activities and not exempted activities—might be inappropriately exempted from the regime.
However, unlike the exemptions for specific activities, all types of goods, services and works contracts are capable of being exempted under the vertical and horizontal exemptions, so the second part of the test at Schedule 2(1)(2)(b) is not met. The contract would remain exempt.
While I believe that we have preserved the rules, the Bill needs to be better understood by users and stakeholders. My noble friend Lord Greenhalgh also made some good points about unnecessary tendering. I met the Local Government Association, as I was concerned about this provision, and my officials are engaging with it following its representations to reach a common understanding. They will come back to me with an amendment that could be put forward in the House of Commons to clarify this provision, should one prove necessary. It will take a bit of time. Accordingly, I ask my noble friend to withdraw the amendment.
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate and those noble Lords who supported this amendment. I was delighted to hear what the Minister had to say, which was in the spirit of the quest for a good procurement system for this country that has permeated the way we have operated on this Bill to date. I am sure that the discussions with the Local Government Association will prove fruitful. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
My Lords, this is a very important group of amendments. We have had many speakers, so I will be concise. My noble friend Lady Parminter has already made some important points on our part. I will not repeat her comments, but we regard the issue of economic, social and environmental benefits to be paramount and we do not subscribe to the idea that it should not be in some way guided by the legislation or the operational part of the legislation.
I have listened carefully to the other speeches. I am minded to side with the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, of using the NPPS as the vehicle through which this aim and principle is achieved. I hope that we shall be able to support both him and the noble Baroness in His Majesty’s Opposition if they decide to press their amendments. Amendments 35 and 46 bear my name; clearly, I stand by them and the speeches that others have made.
There are two other areas on which I want to speak very briefly. Not least, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was unable to be here, but I know that he and my noble friend Lady Brinton have tabled Amendments 38 and 83, which reflect on accessibility. The previous legislation had prior regulations about accessibility and the fact that public procurement should ensure accessibility to all people. It has been lost in the drafting of this Bill. It is not clear to me whether that is a deliberate or accidental dropping of something, so it will be very useful to hear from the Minister what the Government’s thinking was on this. If it was deliberate, I would urge them to think again; if it was accidental, there is time to put it right.
Finally, I would like to make a pitch to support the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, who has unearthed something that must be another unintended consequence of this legislation. I cannot believe that this was deliberately put in place by the Government. His Amendments 58 and 82 are an important way of righting that situation. I hope, again, that the Minister will think again.
In conclusion, we on these Benches absolutely believe that there should be a public purpose to procurement. We feel that the legislators have a role, as well as the very important role outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Maude, for the professionals, when it comes to implementing that policy. It is really important that we seek to achieve public good through the £300 billion of procurement that this country makes.
My Lords, we have had an extremely interesting debate—a shorter one than I was expecting—and I am grateful for all the contributions.
I will start by saying that, while I understand that noble Lords rightly wish to pursue their particular interests, many of which I agree with, we have to bear in mind that procurement is, above all, an economic activity. That does not mean that we cannot take other things into account, but no amount of environmental or social benefit could make a procurement satisfactory if it failed to deliver economically on its intended purpose. We need to avoid the Christmas tree that my noble friend Lord Maude referred to. Of course, the NPPS allows for the inclusion of these sorts of policies—including net zero, as the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, said—but that does not mean to say that we want to put them on the face of the Bill.
In my view, value for money comes first, especially given the financial difficulties that we now face, but it is important to recognise that, as a result of Clause 18, contracting authorities will be working to a new definition, which nobody has mentioned, of “most advantageous tender” rather than “most economically advantageous tender”—that is, MAT not MEAT—so the days of focusing on price alone, not quality or wider matters such as generating UK employment opportunities, are over. Specific policies could also be put into bespoke tender documents, as my noble friend explained.
Secondly, my experience of many Bills is that it is unwise to attempt to define everything in detail at a particular point in time. As the years pass, relative priorities change. Who would have thought two years ago that inflation, the price of energy and the consequences of war would feature so highly on the national agenda? There will no doubt be other surprises—as, indeed, has been the scale of climate change; 20 or 30 years ago, most of us did not realise what would happen.
Thirdly, productivity growth is worryingly low in this country. It is essential that this Bill and the £300 billion of public procurement each year provides a boost and that small businesses are able to secure a share of that, as my noble friend Lord Lindsay’s comments implied. Innovation and competition have an important part to play here—I know that my noble friend Lord Lansley feels that strongly; they are two very important objectives. Procurement should be an enabler of innovation rather than increasing barriers to entry for competition, as my noble friend Lord Maude said.
Against this background, I come to Amendment 33, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. This seeks to restate the six principles consulted on in the Green Paper. In addition to the 619 responses we received, we have carried out extensive consultation with interested groups, as the noble Baroness will know. As a result, our principles were refined and then translated into the objectives and specific obligations that now exist in the Bill. The language of a Green Paper is not the language of legislation, and we have reflected the principles in a way designed to help contracting authorities understand how they will implement them. That goes for value for money, public good, transparency and integrity.
The public consultation indicated that “fair treatment” was too subjective for contracting authorities to determine by objective standards, so we introduced the concept of “treating suppliers the same” in Clause 11(2); and “non-discrimination” has been converted from an objective to a hard-edged obligation in Clauses 83 to 85. We believe that the combination of the objectives and specific legal obligations in the Bill deals with procurement principles in a more effective and practical way.
Amendment 35 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, changes the recognised concept of “value for money” in the procurement objectives into a more amorphous one, which includes the concepts of “social value” and “equity”. I have a number of concerns with what that amendment does. First, it moves contracting authorities away from the well-known concept of “value for money” and creates a new, and perhaps confusing, duty. Contracting authorities will not know this new duty and it will take time, resources and probably a number of costly legal challenges—a bugbear of procurement—to work that out. It is also an unfair burden to place on them in this new regime; we need to minimise legal doubt wherever we can.
It is also worth reminding noble Lords that the current national procurement policy statement already includes social value as one of its key themes. I am also concerned by the assumption that an obligation to have regard to some degree of social value must ensure some degree of equity in procurements. I do not think I am alone in being unclear on what “equity” is supposed to mean in this context, and doubtful that the simple existence of “social value” would deliver it.
Amendments 36 and 42, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Worthington and Lady Hayman, and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, seek to define “public benefit” to include various social and economic matters. The public benefit objective in Clause 11(1)(b) is deliberately undefined, so it is a flexible concept that gives contracting authorities a wide degree of discretion. These amendments seek to define “public benefit” in a much narrower way, limited only to economic, social and environmental benefits.
As I said at the beginning, we have lost sight of the need for our procurement spend also to be used to increase productivity, drive efficiency and stimulate growth. So let us keep the Bill as clear and simple as we can so that we do not swamp contractors and SMEs in paperwork. Let us instead ensure that we have an appropriate national procurement policy statement that can evolve as times change.
Amendments 38 and 83, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, but spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, require contracting authorities to have regard, when carrying out a procurement, to the accessibility of what is being procured for disabled people. I reassure noble Lords that we share the same intent. However, amendments to the Bill are not required: there is no need to change the Bill because, although disability accessibility is of great importance, it is already catered for in the public sector equality duty in the Equality Act 2010. It is appropriate that these matters are considered at the point that contracting authorities draw up technical specifications, and they must apply the requirements of existing law. My officials, however, would certainly welcome further engagement with bodies representing disabled people as the technical specifications and guidance are developed.
The noble Baroness is right that the public sector equality duty is in the Equality Act, but the current system, which we will lose when the Bill comes into force, incorporates both the PSED and provisions under secondary legislation, such as the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. Therefore, when those regulations were laid, there was a tacit acceptance that the PSED alone was insufficient. If the Minister does not accept the amendments, will she bring forward other provisions in another way to backfill what is clearly being lost as we move from one set of rules to the other?
My attitude to this is clear, and I have offered to engage on the subsidiary detail of the transformation that we are planning with the Bill.
I turn to the important matter of the national procurement policy statement, which sets out strategic priorities for procurement. Amendment 43—I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I do not mention their names in relation to every amendment they have tabled—would require the Government to publish a national procurement policy statement, rather than just allowing them to do so. This is the so-called move from “may” to “must”. Amendment 44 then requires a statement to be published within 12 months of the relevant section coming into force.
I think the clause is right as it is. Think of how much more important issues such as supply chain resilience have become since the outbreak of Covid and the conflict in Ukraine. The current approach enables the Government to react nimbly to changes in priority, which my noble friend Lady Noakes thought was important, and they can issue a new statement as appropriate. However, importantly, I can assure noble Lords that this Government will publish such a statement when the Bill takes effect; indeed, they have already done so in draft. The Bill will put the new statement on a statutory footing. Importantly, the clause provides that, once the statement is published, contracting authorities must have regard to it when carrying out their procurement activity. The amendment as drafted requires a Minister to publish a statement. However, a Minister would be unable to fulfil this requirement were Parliament to vote against it, perversely meaning that the amendment would potentially prevent a Minister discharging the statutory duty. I would therefore prefer to avoid the formula proposed in Amendment 43.
Amendment 46 proposes that, prior to publishing a statement, the Minister must give due regard to a number of specified principles, most of which represent elements core to the procurement regime. This is evident from the drafting of the Bill overall: for example, value for money, integrity and maximising public benefit are set out clearly, and transparency is a specific requirement running throughout the Bill. There is a lot in common here with what I said at the beginning so I will not repeat that.
Amendment 47, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lansley, the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, and the noble Earl, Lord Devon, would require the inclusion of specific priorities in the national procurement policy statement relating to the achievement of targets and requirements set under the Climate Change Act and other legislation, as well as promoting innovation and minimising the incidence of fraud. As discussed in Committee, the range of topics suggested by noble Lords during the process demonstrates that stakeholders have different priorities for procurement. These matters are already well covered in our statute book. It is important that policy priorities are addressed in a targeted way and that our regime does not contribute to a deterioration in productivity. That said, noble Lords will be reassured to know that many of these themes—net zero, social value and innovation—feature in the current non-statutory statement that we have already published.
My Lords, earlier today, we discussed government Amendment 34 on covered procurement, and, as promised, I have reflected on the contributions made by noble Lords. They will have noted that I left the Bill to my noble friend Lady Bloomfield for a while for this very purpose. I have looked at the implications of not proceeding with this amendment with my experts, and I still intend to move it. It is the Government’s view that, if it is not agreed, the objectives will still have to be considered for all procurements, including exempted procurements under Schedule 2, which would create the perverse situation I mentioned of needing to consider transparency in those exempted security contracts or—to give another example—contracts with law firms, which would include legally privileged information, and that would not be appropriate. It will also extend to small, low-value contracts, including those let by small authorities such as parish councils.
For these reasons, and those I set out earlier, I move Amendment 34. Should your Lordships disagree, the House can make its view known.
If that is the argument, why will the national procurement policy statement be applied to all procurements and not just covered procurements?
As we have discussed, the national procurement policy statement is wide-ranging. In the Bill, we have tried to set up a framework and lots of rules for contracting authorities to try to ensure that they are adopting procedures that will improve and simplify procurement, which, as we all agree in this House, is not in the state it needs to be in. We believe that not moving Amendment 34—that is, not restricting procurement in certain respects—will lead to a great deal more difficulty for contracting authorities, particularly in these exempt areas. We have looked at the exemptions carefully and, contrary to what I think my noble friend thinks, individual procurements would have to be considered in a much more detailed way as a result of the perverse effect without this amendment.
As I said, should your Lordships disagree, the House can make its view known, should it wish. I beg to move Amendment 34.
My Lords, it may aid the House if I set out the government amendments in this group. I thank my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and will respond to her when I have heard other contributions. I share her tribute to Lord Plumb, whom I dealt with in all the stages of my career—at Defra, in Europe and in this House—and I am only sorry that government business prevented me from celebrating with others his wonderful life and success today.
There are a number of amendments in my name relating to SMEs. They are important government amendments to help SMEs to win a bigger share of the £300 billion procurement pie. I know that this issue is close to the hearts of noble Lords from across the House. Throughout Committee, noble Lords questioned whether the Bill had gone far enough in removing barriers to SMEs accessing public procurement. It has certainly been a top priority for me since I was lucky enough to become a Cabinet Office Minister. It is right that we support this vital sector of our economy. At the start of 2022, there were 5.5 million small businesses, accounting for 99% of all businesses in the UK, with over 16 million employees and a turnover of over £2 trillion. We must do more to champion these entrepreneurs.
The new measures that I am announcing today complement the existing provisions in the Bill, which make it easier for businesses to enter public sector supply chains and benefit SMEs. They include greater visibility of upcoming public sector opportunities and preliminary market engagement; developing a supplier registration system, meaning that suppliers need to submit their credentials only once; improvements to commercial tools, such as the introduction of dynamic markets and open frameworks; and, crucially, requiring that 30-day payment terms will apply throughout the public sector supply chain.
I am glad to be moving amendments in three areas to add to this momentum. First, we have introduced a new duty for contracting authorities to have regard to the participation of SMEs. It sends a very clear signal that the Government are open for business to this sector. For the first time, SMEs will be on the face of the Bill, which means that authorities have a responsibility to consider them and the barriers they face. To put this in practical terms, contracting authorities will, for example, need to specifically consider through an SME lens whether the requirements they are asking for are proportionate to the contract. Are the bidding times realistic when some businesses do not have a dedicated bidding team? Have they provided clear pipelines of opportunity? Is there a diverse representation of businesses in pre-market engagement?
Secondly, we have further stripped out unnecessary barriers which SMEs face. I thank my noble friend Lady Noakes and the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, for highlighting ideas in Committee. I particularly appreciated the point that he raised, that we need to
“release some of the normal procedures and bureaucracy”.—[Official Report, 11/7/22; col. GC 385.]
As a result, we have banned authorities requiring the provision of audited accounts to test the financial standing of bidders to bid in procurements, to compete for contracts under frameworks and to join dynamic markets, except in so far as that is required under the Companies Act. This ensures that start-ups and SMEs which are not legally required to file audited accounts due to their size or age will not be shut out of procurements, provided that they can demonstrate their financial capacity by another reliable means.
Thirdly, we are going further to reduce unnecessary costs on businesses by preventing contracting authorities from requiring insurance relating to the performance of the contract, to be in place prior to the award. We know from feedback that this acts as an obstacle to participation.
Following Committee, I have reflected on the points raised by noble Lords during the debates and would like to thank many of them for follow-up discussions on this topic. I have also met trade associations such as the Federation of Small Businesses and the Business Services Association at a recent round table. We hope that the amendments will give SMEs a better chance of winning public sector contracts and allow the public sector wider access to the first-class skills, innovation and ideas that many agile, creative smaller firms offer. In turn, this will allow us to improve and enable the transformation of procurement services. These are all captured in Amendments 40, 122, 57, 70 and 74. Amendments 75, 76, 134, 140, 179, 183, 186, 188, 192 and 203 are consequential amendments, including splitting Clause 43 into two to avoid it becoming unwieldy.
I have also tabled Amendment 55, which requires a contracting authority to provide sufficient information in the tender notice or associated documents to enable suppliers to prepare tenders. It facilitates a clear trigger for the start of the tendering period identified in Clause 51. As the time available for bid preparation is so important, we consider that small suppliers will welcome this practical clarification. Amendments 40 and 122 in my name create new obligations on contracting authorities to consider the removal or reduction of barriers in procurement to small and medium-sized enterprises. We need to make sure that small and medium-sized companies do better in the procurement world.
I rise to speak to Amendments 41 and 123, which are amendments to government amendments. We welcome Amendment 40 but, as the noble Lords, Lord Maude and Lord Lansley, have said, we need in the Bill to make sure that, as well as SMEs, social enterprises, mutuals and non-profits are eased and get around some of the barriers otherwise placed in their way. I hope that the Minister will be able to give a sufficiently strong assurance that this is what is intended for it not to be necessary to divide the House on this issue, and perhaps even to come back at Third Reading with an adjustment to the current Amendment 40.
In the Green Paper that started this process, the importance of social enterprise, mutuals and non-profits was clearly marked; it has now disappeared altogether. Many of us are conscious that there are those on the libertarian right who think that every form of economic activity should be in the pursuit of profit and that the idea that you can do anything without wanting to make a profit is absurd and against free market principles. The libertarian right in the United States, which clings to such theological doctrines, has begun to infiltrate parts of the Conservative Party and, I am told, was a visible presence at the Conservative Party conference—but I am confident that real Conservatives do not share that absurd theological view. They recognise that there are many areas, particularly in personal services and care, where the different approach that comes from mutuals and non-profits makes a considerable amount of difference. There have been a number of scandals in care homes run for profit in recent years. I speak with passion on this subject because I have had a relative in a charitable care home who was wonderfully well treated in the last few years of her life.
I hope that the Minister will be prepared to recognise that the importance of social enterprise and non-profits needs to be here, and that she will give absolute assurance that this is what the Government intend, and that they do not intend to leave them with the barriers that the Government intend to remove for SMEs.
My Lords, I have just a few brief remarks on this group. Before I come on to the main point that I want to make, I shall say that I think Amendment 37, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, about local produce and the local procurement of foodstuffs is something that is growing in importance. All of us know in our own communities that people individually are doing that, as well as local businesses. I think that before long the 50% target she put in her amendment will grow. I think it is an important amendment. Given the other things being talked about, it should not be lost in the general debate.
I thank the Minister for government Amendment 40, which goes to the heart of the discussion in this group, which is about encouraging small and medium-sized enterprises in the procurement process to do better than they are present, and the responsibility of contracting authorities to achieve that. The real question for the Minister—and, frankly, if there are changes of Minister in future—is how we will ensure that that happens, because successive Governments have tried to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises, and it has not been as successful as we wanted. The question is about how we make this procurement system work in a way that benefits small and medium-sized businesses in the way that we would all want.
I am very supportive of Amendment 41, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, which talks about the barriers faced by social enterprises and not-for-profit companies in competing for procurement. I think that is something that will become increasingly important.
I know my noble friend Lord Hendy will speak about his later amendment in more depth. His amendment in this group, Amendment 162A, allows procurement to take into account the terms and conditions of staff and the legal status of subcontractors. I think it is an extremely important area, and I thank my noble friend for raising it because all of us would wish to see that people are paid properly for the work they do and that nobody is undercut in the winning of various contracts.
The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, pointed to Amendment 163 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and her supportive Amendment 164, which she ably put forward. She made some important points which we can look at in due course and to which I hope the Minister will respond.
However, I go back to where I started: the key amendment in this group is government Amendment 40. We are grateful that it has been brought forward and hope that it will encourage greater success for small and medium-sized enterprises in the procurement business in this country. The key for us is to make sure that this time it works and that we do not have another government amendment in two years’ time trying to achieve the same.
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is right that the challenge is to make the shift to SMEs a reality. I will take that away as my homework. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, especially the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, who progressed matters with me and saved me from a further group of amendments.
I was also very interested in the real-life experience of my noble friend Lord Maude as to the difficulties of getting potential small suppliers to apply for government contracts, because in my experience SMEs can represent very good value for money. They do not have the same costs and scale of central services that some of the bigger operators have, and that can feed through into great prices and great service.
My Lords, I rise to introduce a number of government amendments. These include several technical amendments, so I will be brief.
Amendments 59, 60, 108 and 109 exempt the corporate officers of Parliament from the requirement to seek agreement from a Minister of the Crown before excluding a supplier or terminating a contract under the national security exclusion ground. Amendment 85 ensures that the mandatory exclusion grounds capture all Scots law offences equivalent to the already specified English and Welsh offences.
Amendments 86 and 87 refer to the relevant sections in the Theft Act to align with other legislation on economic crimes. Amendment 88 amends the transitional regime for mandatory exclusions to ensure that the correct time period is applied for the mandatory exclusion ground for conspiracy to defraud. Amendment 90 simplifies the exclusion grounds for suppliers which are insolvent or bankrupt. Amendments 92 and 93 amend the rules on how far in the past events can be taken into account as discretionary exclusion grounds in relation to breach of contract and poor performance.
I will turn to the amendments tabled by other noble Lords when I close. I beg to move.
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 89 in my name. I feel that the time pressure has lifted, so perhaps I can make a nice long speech to your Lordships now. Amendment 89 is intended to allow Ministers and contracting authorities to exclude businesses from procurement where there is evidence of financial and economic criminal activity, such as fraud, money laundering, bribery or sanctions evasions, but there has not yet been a conviction by a court.
This follows the debate we had in Grand Committee on Amendment 320, when the Minister made some cogent points about the problems of excluding organisations that had not been convicted—that point was understood. However, given the length of time involved in carrying out investigations and then securing the resulting enforcement action, we remain concerned that there is a real possibility that unsuitable suppliers may be awarded procurement contracts while they are awaiting the full length of the process.
It was therefore with some interest that my attention was drawn to the Government’s Review into the Risks of Fraud and Corruption in Local Government Procurement. This review looked into the risks of fraud and corruption in local government procurement—not surprising; that is what it was supposed to do—and made the recommendation that the exclusions regime for public procurement should be examined to see
“if more could be done to allow procurers to exclude bidders from the process (with reasonable cause and without the requirement to disclose), for example when there are known concerns with law enforcement that have not yet resulted in a prosecution”.
We believe that the Bill provides an opportunity for the Government to fulfil this recommendation, and suggest that the process of studying how to do that, recommended in that report, could happen. I should be grateful if the Minister would bring forward some sort of government process to have that assessment. If this is not the Government’s intention, she needs to explain to your Lordships’ House why she is prepared to recommend one process for local authorities through a report that had ministerial backing while ignoring the actual issue in the appropriate legislation, which is the Bill. This was the subject of a letter that I wrote to the Minister many days ago and I am still waiting for the reply.
It is in everyone’s interest to ensure that the contracting authority can act when it has evidence of financial or economic offences, but formal conviction is outstanding. We understand the problems, but the Government themselves have identified this as an issue with local authorities. The exclusion regime is not just a deterrent for bad actors; it is also supposed to prevent them getting the contracts in the first place.
My Lords, this has been a short debate, but this group contains some very important amendments that the Minister should consider carefully.
I turn first to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Fox. He introduced it extremely clearly and explained why he considered it necessary. He made an important point: if you give a contract to somebody who, not a very long time afterwards, is found guilty of the offences outlined in the noble Lord’s amendment, what recourse is there for other people who have bid for that contract and behaved perfectly properly? We know that contracts are often given for a number of years, so this is likely not to be something that happens once in a blue moon; it could become a problem. If the Minister is not inclined to accept the noble Lord’s amendment, I ask her to take his concerns back to her department to see whether there is another way to have some kind of recourse or review if such a situation were to arise.
My noble friend Lord Hendy’s amendment is incredibly important because, as he rightly said in introducing it, we have Clause 29, which looks at excluding suppliers for improper behaviour—he listed many of the improper behaviours that are included in this—but what is not included is what happens if the rights of an employee or worker are breached. Surely the rights of those who work on contracts and work for people should be fully supported by the Government. We have laws on employment rights for a purpose. Surely, in looking at procurement and who to give what are often extremely lucrative contracts to, this Bill should consider employees’ rights and ensure that companies that have behaved improperly by breaching employment rights are excluded.
This seems a very straightforward amendment to add to the Bill. It would give employees more confidence and would give people who are looking to employ people confidence that they are treating their workforce in the way the law of our country dictates. I urge the Minister to support this amendment.
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for Amendment 89 on financial and economic misconduct. The amendment would permit the exclusion of suppliers where there is evidence of certain economic and financial offences. Of course, suppliers who commit fraud, bribery and money laundering and have failed to self-clean have no place winning government contracts. There are already mandatory grounds for exclusion that cover the most serious offences of this nature, as set out in Schedule 6. It is worth noting that the scope of economic and financial offences covered is significantly wider than in the EU regime that it replaces, including a broader range of theft, fraud and money laundering offences.
However, the mandatory grounds in Schedule 6 rightly require the supplier or a connected person to have been convicted. By providing for exclusion without the requirement for a conviction, the amendment would require authorities to make a judgment as to whether there is sufficient evidence that offences have been committed in order to apply the ground. They would need to make this judgment at a point when the investigating authorities have not reached a view, which would be very difficult. The exclusions regime requires all grounds to be considered in respect of every bidder in a procurement, so authorities would have no choice about whether to consider these matters.
I thank the noble Lord for drawing our attention to the review of finance and corruption in local government. The recommendation in that review was that we consider whether this proposal is feasible. We have given it careful consideration but are not taking it forward, for the reasons I have already touched on. However, I would add that the very fact pointed out by the noble Lord—that investigations by the authorities into these matters, which can apply to many different areas of regulation, often take considerable time—speaks to the complexity of making these judgments within the contracting authorities. There is no reason to think that they would find this any easier than the relevant and proper authorities. In fact, they would find it harder, so it would be a new burden on those investigating suppliers—it could be a significant one—and on suppliers themselves, which I am unwilling to impose.
I turn now to Amendment 91A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, which introduces a discretionary exclusion for “significant” breaches of workers’ rights. I pay tribute to the noble Lord’s work in this area. In my view, the exclusion grounds already cover the most serious breaches of workers’ rights, so the mandatory grounds in Schedule 6 include slavery and human trafficking offences, offences relating to employment agencies and gangmasters, and refusal or wilful neglect to pay the national minimum wage. These are based on the serious labour offences within the purview of the director of labour market enforcement.
The amendment begs the question of what constitutes a “significant” breach. Unless there is a settled consensus on this point, which I am not aware of, it will be difficult for both suppliers and contracting authorities to interpret. We should remember that suppliers will need to self-declare whether they are subject to any of the grounds, and that contracting authorities will need to consider whether suppliers meet the grounds in each procurement that they run. That is quite wide-ranging in relation to employment rights. Questions of whether a breach is significant, and, indeed, whether it relates to rights derived from statute, common law or international obligations, will consume a disproportionate amount of time and resources. I do not doubt that there are a number of behaviours in different areas which the exclusion grounds we have set out might or might not cover; but the purpose of the exclusions regime is to protect against suppliers that may be fundamentally unfit to compete for public contracts. It is not a means to enforce employment rights, or a lever to incentivise certain behaviours.
What we have introduced in this Bill is a much tougher regime of debarment, with central resources devoted to assessing suppliers and deciding centrally on debarment. This is tough for direct and indirect suppliers, as one bad apple in a company can cause them to be debarred—a very strong incentive to ensure that bad behaviour does not occur in the first place, of course; or, where it does, to take remedial action. However, expanding the exclusion grounds, as proposed in this amendment, will have a chilling effect on engagement in procurement, as I explained from a business perspective before I became a Minister and turned into the gamekeeper. We must be fair and remember that we have an interest in more competitive markets that improve value for money, innovation and productivity. I am grateful to those who have spoken for raising these issues. However, I believe we have done enough in Schedule 6, and I respectfully ask the noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Hendy, not to press their amendments, given the lateness of the hour.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, raised a new point about the carry-on consequences of the issues we have discussed in this group. I am not sure that we can do anything about that, but I will certainly have a look at that as the Bill progresses. I beg to move.
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I associate myself with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the very valid questions he asked. I welcome this move. It was a change of heart from the Government, but nevertheless a welcome move for those military and civilian personnel who served their nation and now will, finally, be properly recognised. Notwithstanding views about the weapons system itself, these people served their country and recognition—unfortunately, as the noble Lord indicated—has come too late for many. However, it will provide some comfort to their families that an often-disregarded service is now being recognised.
How many civilians will be eligible for recognition and the medal? On support, which the noble Lord asked so clearly about, in replying to questions on the Statement in the Commons, the Veterans Minister, Mr Mercer, indicated that pensions were available. But, of those who are eligible for pensions, what is the Government’s estimate of the proportion who are receiving them? Often, this is, in effect, an opt-in. There is the very valid point about promoting material through the various networks. Some of these veterans will be part of veterans’ associations and others will not, so how will the Government disseminate and promote this information?
My final question is on the indigenous communities in the areas where these tests took place. The indigenous communities in Australia did not voluntarily offer their land for British nuclear tests, and they too have been impacted. The Minister in the Commons indicated that the UK Government provided £20 million then to clear this up, but the legacy is much longer. I met with the acting high commissioner of Australia this week, and she raised with me the good work now being done with the new Prime Minister of Australia in seeking to enhance recognition of the indigenous communities. We can play our part with our allies and friends in the Australian Government by increasing our recognition of the impact on their communities of something that has made our country safer, as the Government say, but which has unfortunately made many of those communities less safe. So, what do the Government plan to do for the indigenous communities in places where these tests took place?
My Lords, as the noble Lord said, Tuesday’s announcement was a huge victory for the nuclear test veterans. Since the very positive announcement by the Minister for Veterans on Tuesday was taken as read, I will make three points by way of introduction before I answer the noble Lords’ questions.
As the noble Lord said, the UK undertook its first nuclear test 70 years ago and, in so doing, confirmed our country’s status as the world’s third nuclear power, which has helped to keep peace since World War II. Critical to the success were those who took part in our national testing programme. There is a direct line between their service all those years ago and the safety and security of our nation today, which becomes ever more important.
Secondly, in recognition of their service and the 70th anniversary, the Government are undertaking a wide programme of recognition to pay tribute to all service personnel, and civilians—that is so important—who took part in the testing programme in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Kiribati. We owe them a great debt of gratitude. The programme of recognition began this week with the UK Government’s first commemorative event at the National Memorial Arboretum, with the Prime Minister himself announcing the creation of a new medal for military and civilian participants in the testing programme. It was wonderful that Ministers, veterans and their families gathered at the arboretum to thank all those who were present and the families of those whom we have lost.
Thirdly, this has been a cross-party matter, as the Veterans Minister said in the other place. It is not only people like the Secretary of State for Defence who have been involved in all of this; so have Rebecca Long Bailey, John Baron and Sir John Hayes. People from across the parties have been involved, which is unusual and well worth celebrating.
Clearly, I am new to this subject, but I will try to answer all of the questions and I will follow up on those I do not. We will of course need resources to find who should be given the medals, and it is clear that the process has to get under way. I do not think we have given an estimate of the numbers, but we are keen to make this a success and look generously at who should be awarded.
The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, talked about pensions. The question was raised in the other place and the Minister for Veterans indicated that he would be writing on this issue. What I can say is that I will ensure that a copy of that letter also gets sent to noble Lords engaged in this debate, and I will try to add to the request the percentage of those eligible, which I think is an additional one. We will do what we can. It was quite a long time ago and it is often quite difficult to find answers to these questions, but we can certainly look at the pensions. Of course, veterans who believe they have suffered ill health due to service can apply for no-fault compensation under the war pension scheme, and more information is on the Veterans UK pages on GOV.UK, including specific guidance for the nuclear test veterans.
I was asked about plans for reviewing medals more generally, and I have to say that there are currently no plans to review the assessment process; it is a well-established process. The Advisory Military Sub-Committee is an independent committee; it has robust processes in place to review historic military medals and claims against the military medals framework.
Finally, I will say how important it was to acknowledge the indigenous populations, whose traditional lands and territorial seas were used for nuclear testing. As the noble Lord said, this has already been the subject of a £20 million ex gratia payment to Australia to help rehabilitate former lands and seas. I was very interested to hear about the discussions he has been having with the Australians, and I look forward to catching up further on that.
My Lords, I rise with great pleasure, as I always do in your Lordships’ House, to use the hashtag Campaigning Works, and I join the Front Bench spokespeople in commending the nuclear test veterans and their families who have campaigned so hard, and for so long, and can now finally celebrate the results. I do hope that the Government can ensure that these medals reach the veterans and their families.
My question follows on from that of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, and from what the Minister was just saying about the traditional owners of these lands. I note that in this rather long Statement there is one sentence that refers to
“an acknowledgement of the traditional owners of the lands that were used for nuclear testing”.
I wonder whether the Minister might be able to amplify a little what the word “acknowledgement” actually means? I particularly note in that context Maralinga, the most infamous site in Australia with the worst contamination, and the worst damage done to indigenous communities. Just last year a Monash University study revealed some new scientific understanding that in the desert environment, even small particles can break down in that environment to release plutonium—something that is happening right now at this moment and will happen for many decades, and perhaps centuries. So, would “acknowledgement” include more support, perhaps for more research and more action to deal with the continuing damage?
I agree with the noble Baroness that it is important to publicly acknowledge the use of lands belonging to traditional landowners for nuclear testing, both in Australia and the Pacific; I was going to volunteer that point which the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, made. We are acknowledging it publicly in Parliament, and we have to continue to do that; I am not aware of any particular research in the area that the noble Baroness mentioned, but I will certainly ask that question and come back to her if I can give her any more information. I suspect that she may know a great deal more about Australia and what is going on there.
My Lords, I very much echo the congratulations of other noble Lords on this matter finally being resolved. The points about the indigenous population and any kind of fallout are very important, because there could be nothing worse for the reputation of our country than the idea that we would conduct experiments of this sort, which are very important, and somehow poison other people’s land without compensating them and checking that it is now safe.
I, too, very respectfully suggest that there are lessons to be learned here. Bureaucracy, of course, takes a long time. Where compensation, medals and pensions are concerned, I am sure the Government would prefer not to be seen to have this matter resolved by people constantly having to campaign and drag it from them. I suggest to the Minister that we should try to be more proactive about looking ahead when these problems arise, and perhaps even come up with solutions before we need endless campaigns. It is more honourable and dignified, and it is clearly applicable to a question such as this. However, I repeat that I am very glad that this question has now been resolved.
I am glad that the noble Lord also mentioned the communities in Australia and elsewhere. Of course, as I said, there has been a government ex gratia payment, which I believe was very important. Although the 1950s and 1960s were a long time ago, it is not too late to honour the brave people involved. Those looking at these cases in the round have difficult judgments to make but, having said that, the noble Lord is right that we should learn from mistakes. That is one of the principles I have brought into government with me: learn as you go along, because you can improve in almost every area of government.
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, is taking part remotely and I invite him to speak.
My Lords, in 1992, I led a delegation of British parliamentarians to the Maralinga test site. While I very much welcome the award at long last—70 years on—of medals to British nuclear test veterans, I ask the Minister what the position is now on monetary compensation for them and their families. She will know that a study in 1999 found that an extraordinary 30% of these veterans had already died, mostly in their 50s, from cancers and other conditions. This is hardly surprising as air crew were required to fly through the mushroom cloud and servicemen were ordered to walk, run and crawl across the site to see how much nuclear fallout adhered to their uniform.
Moreover, as my noble friend Lord Coaker mentioned, a disproportionate incidence of birth deformities, cancers and infant mortalities has been found in the veterans’ children. Given the arguments that took place between the Governments of the UK and Australia about responsibility for compensation, and given the years of obfuscation by the MoD before it agreed in 1988 to compensate our own veterans, to what extent can the Minister assure the House that appropriate compensation has now been paid? Do the Government intend to take further steps to fulfil any legal and moral obligations to servicemen and their families, to civilian families and to the traditional owners of the lands where the tests took place?
I am glad to have the further experience of the noble Lord. Although I was not aware of his visit, he brings great emotion to this subject, which is very helpful on a day when we have made a great deal of progress in this area. He will know that there is an established process for all veterans, including nuclear test veterans, to be able to claim compensation where they believe they have a service-related condition. Veterans UK has worked with the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association—whom I take this opportunity to congratulate—to develop enhanced guidance to support claimants belonging to the nuclear test veterans community, which is available on GOV.UK.
In addition to the medals, a wider package was announced—the oral history project, which is important in remembering the victims involved. I have taken part in oral history projects and they are extremely valuable, as this one will be for the veterans, their families and everyone else involved. Charities will also be able to bid for a separate £200,000 fund to support activities.
(1 year, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask His Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the government of the United States of America about the suspension of United Kingdom government contracts with Bain & Company.
Before I answer the Question, I should say that it was a privilege to hear the South African President addressing Parliament yesterday. I hope I speak for others when I say that I found the Lord Speaker’s vote of thanks very warm and well judged.
His Majesty’s Government have not suspended any contracts with Bain & Company; however, following careful consideration in the light of South Africa’s Zondo commission, Bain & Company and its affiliates have been excluded from bidding for procurements for the award of new Cabinet Office contracts for a period of three years. Other departments were advised that exclusion should also be considered for their procurements. I am not aware of any specific UK government engagement with the Government of the United States of America on this issue.
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord True, and Jacob Rees-Mogg—I never thought I would say that—for suspending Bain & Company from obtaining UK government contracts for three years. No company should act illegally abroad—as the South African judicial commission found Bain to have done in deliberately disabling the country’s tax-collecting agency, on the direct instruction of the corrupt former President to protect his cronies and his family—and get government contracts at home. The Government’s action sets an important precedent for other global corporates—that they must act legally and ethically abroad or be barred from taxpayer-funded public contracts at home. Bain is Boston-headquartered and I urge the Prime Minister to press President Biden to follow Britain’s lead.
My Lords, our understanding is that Bain & Company currently does no work for the US federal Government or US federal government agencies and has done no such work since early 2013, but the UK Government are confident that our key ally, the United States, will undertake the necessary due diligence to investigate such matters.
My Lords, it seems to be the settled policy of the Government to cut the size of the Civil Service and then compensate by spending more money on consultancies. Why is this done? Is it because civil servants provide evidence, whereas consultancies tell the Government what they want to hear? Some £60 million has been paid to Bain in the last six years. I understand that £40 million of that was paid for “advice on Brexit opportunities”. Was that value for money?
Bain is not being paid anything at the moment, and I think that in the last year the figure was £2 million. I share the noble Lord’s view that we have to look carefully when we employ consultants to do work that can sometimes be done well within the Civil Service. At the same time, extra expertise is sometimes needed, especially on subjects as difficult as Brexit.
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on being persistent in raising this issue at every opportunity. Corruption at an international level needs international co-operation. While the Minister may say that there are no contracts with the federal Government of the United States, the company will certainly do contract work with states within the US. While she is not aware of any discussions with the US Government, can she reassure us that there will be such discussions so that we can tackle this cancer on the world, corruption?
I agree that the noble Lord, Lord Hain, has been a great campaigner on this issue and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for repeating that. It is very important that we fight corruption at every level, in every way we can. It erodes trust and undermines public confidence, and it does that internationally. I think we have a good record in recent years, under this Government, in raising corruption internationally. I come back to my point that individual countries have to take their own action on exclusion and debarment.
Since I have the opportunity to come back, I would like to say that I am very grateful to the Minister for her response. The US is a key ally of ours, as are other countries in the G7 and the G20; all of them do business with Bain. Surely Britain having provided a lead opens the door for the Government to lobby their colleagues and friends to follow the same policy. Companies which act illegally—in disabling a tax agency in this case—should surely pay the penalty.
On the subject of US relations, I can say that the Prime Minister met US President Biden at the G20 in Indonesia, and they agreed on the national and international importance of the UK-US relationship given the challenging economic times and all the difficulties we face together. The US Government have a suspension and debarment regime to which they devote a lot of resources, and contractors found not to be responsible are suspended or debarred, and the US will no doubt study very seriously the Zondo commission and the steps we have taken in the UK to lead the way on this matter.
My Lords, is it not about time that directors were held accountable for such actions, and that some of them went to jail?
There is corporate law which involves the suspension of directors, but I am not able to speak about it today; it is dealt with by another department. However, our new Procurement Bill improves the arrangements for debarment where exclusion is needed, perhaps because there has been insolvency, dishonesty, impropriety or a serious breach of ethical and professional standards. We will discuss that in this House on Report next week. I think we are moving forward in this area although we have to be fair and balanced, as the UK Government always try to be.
My Lords, as the Minister knows, there is no central enforcer of corporate law in the UK and the whole scene is very disjointed. While the Minister is in the mood to tackle corruption, can I invite her to tell the House whether any of the big four accounting firms, whose tax avoidance schemes have been declared unlawful by the courts, have at any time during the last 12 years been investigated, prosecuted or fined, or have the Government even bothered to recover a penny of the legal costs?
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments, but it goes rather beyond today’s Question. However, I can say that the Cabinet Office conducted an in-depth review into KPMG following the finding against the firm of dishonesty in its role in the sale of the Silentnight group of companies. In fact, the review concluded that KPMG should not be excluded because it had carried out self-cleaning measures —that is where a company moves to demonstrate reliability and improve its compliance systems. It is very important that companies can do the right thing, particularly where mistakes have been made.