Procurement Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Worthington and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

Committee stage
Wednesday 13th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

The Government have put some objectives into legislation, such as the climate change targets. What we are saying is, for goodness’ sake, where that happens, link this Bill to the other pieces of legislation. Surely it all fits together then.

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

I remember well when we were debating the then Climate Change Bill how important it was to include a list of conditions that needed to be taken into account when setting the climate change budgets, including economic competitiveness and all sorts of other things. All we are asking for here is to have a reciprocating set of policies to ensure that the same things happen the other way around. I do not mean to be provocative, but there is a purpose for having a Government, and it sometimes feels as if the people in government do not really want to be there. If you are in government, you have levers, so use them.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Worthington and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

Committee stage
Monday 11th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

I could get into trouble quoting the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, to himself on constitutional issues in the Schools Bill, but surely I can quote the noble Lord, Lord True, to himself. He interpreted my noble friend’s words of wisdom as a dangerous attempt by my party—the Labour Party—to constrain individual private companies that sought to provide public services to conform to the will of whatever its wishes in power might be. If only.

I think my noble friend was really saying—no doubt he will come back if he thinks I have got it wrong—that this Bill presents us with a unique opportunity to influence a huge public spend in the direction of policies that we wish to see implemented. In today’s environment, climate change and sustainability are essential. One way or another, this Bill will leave this House with some form of words on that in it, and I doubt very much whether the Government will be able to take them out, bearing in mind that this is a Lords starter.

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 49 and 58 in this group referring to Clause 11 on procurement objectives. I am very grateful for the support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Verma, Lady Young of Old Scone and Lady Parminter, on these amendments.

We have just had a very interesting debate about the need to support small and medium-sized businesses as a more explicit goal within the Bill. I am here on this group of amendments to make the case for more explicit support for future generations. We have a climate crisis on our hands. We are potentially facing temperatures of 43 degrees this weekend. This is not a pleasant situation to be in; it is going to cause people to die. This is not something we should turn away from, and we must future-proof every single piece of legislation that passes through the House during our watch. This Bill offers an opportunity for us to do just that. The Government have not introduced anything in the Bill that goes beyond guidance other than simply the words “public benefit”. This needs to be given much more clarity, and my amendments seek to do that.

It was stated at Second Reading, and I apologise for being unable to attend it, that we need to improve the existing drafting. Therefore, I am looking forward to hearing from the Minister and, I hope, to meeting the Minister as I have to echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. It feels that there is a huge amount of cross-party support for being clearer in this Bill about our intentions and that somehow or other we need to see something more explicit in the Bill, so a meeting on this topic would be most welcome.

Amendment 49 seeks to add more specific targets and a list of matters that the contracting authority must have to regard to including the importance of contributing to targets on our carbon budgets, the natural environment, air quality and other matters. I do not think anybody here is wedded to precise wording, and a number of noble Lords have come forward with different wordings in this group. Obviously, this is not an amendment I would seek to make final, but there must be a form of wording we could all agree on.

We have talked at length about the opportunity the £300 billion per year spent on government procurement offers in terms of driving forward the agenda we wish to see and increasing Britain’s productivity, innovation and the diversity of the companies able to engage in the transition we need to see. Business as usual is no longer tenable. We need to drive change, and we know that procurement is a hugely important lever for doing that.

I asked some questions about precisely how much procurement is responsible for driving global carbon emissions, but I am told that that information cannot be given, so we have no way of knowing how well aligned government policy is to the achievement of these broader goal, which is regrettable. We want to see more clarity in the Bill so that we can, over time, know whether procurement is delivering on these multiple goals.

I am sure there will be responses from the Minister that call into question the sense of these amendments and suggest that somehow it would distort the hierarchy. I reassure the Minister that that is not what we are seeking to do. We are not trying to tie the hands but are simply trying to provide the clarity and direction for such an important lever. I am sure we will be told that the next clause on the national procurement policy statement should be relied upon to deliver this clarity. Yet—and we will debate this—there is not a requirement on the Government to produce a statement; it is simply a “may”. Also, there is no fixed timetable I can see about when that will be produced so, really, we have nothing. There are no reassurances at all that this very poorly defined concept of public benefit will be given more flesh and more detail.

There is a precedent for putting something in the Bill. I highlight Section 9 of the Health and Care Act 2022, on which this amendment is modelled, which amended the National Health Service Act 2006 to give similar duties to the NHS to have regard to climate change including in relation to procurement, so it is not incoherent or without precedent to put this in the Bill. It would be more consistent to have it in legislation. If we do not do it, people will say that it was done in the NHS Act and ask why it was not done in the broader framework Bill that came subsequently. There is well-established similar terminology in the Financial Services Act 2001 and the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022, so we must be consistent about the future-proofing of Bills to ensure that we are sending the right signals and bringing about this transition.

I hope I have explained why I think this approach should be taken. I highlight that public benefit being undefined is a problem, which brings me to Amendment 58. Of course it is legitimate for a Government not to seek to define every word in legislation, and some legislation can be unambiguously understood when the words have the ordinary meaning that you would find in a dictionary. The trouble with not defining a term that needs to be understood by all and for that meaning to be as consistently understood as it can be is that it will introduce a level of subjectivity and a lack of clarity. In a search through existing legislation, I have found no use or definition of public benefit, except in relation to charities law, but that cannot easily be read across into procurement decisions. Amendment 58 seeks to remedy that and to define it more clearly. It would include local priority outcomes as well as national ones.

I am sure the Minister will say that the understanding of public benefit will evolve over time and therefore a degree of a flexibility is required, but that is why we have selected only the issues which are enduring and which will be playing out of the long term. We have chosen three national and local priorities. Of course, that does not limit other priorities, but these will be enduring outcomes that will be with us for the long haul and will not change. The need to address the issues that we have highlighted here will get only greater. I think this amendment should be supported; I am not particularly wedded to this way of doing it, but there needs to be something in the Bill to provide the clarity that enables us to future-proof it. We need to take the current crisis and the responsibility we carry for future generations seriously in all legislation we consider, and I therefore look forward to the Minister’s response.