Procurement Bill [HL]

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 11th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I will contribute on Amendments 4A and 4B in particular. As noble Lords will recall, the structure of Amendment 4A, as an amendment in lieu of the Commons Amendment 4, incorporates to an extent some of the issues raised in the strategic priorities that your Lordships sent to the Commons to be included in the national procurement policy statement. I will explain how that works in a minute.

Like other noble Lords, I am grateful for the time and effort that my noble friend the Minister has given to listening to what we had to say. On Commons Amendment 5—which would get rid of the reference to “strategic priorities”—I was focused on innovation, as she knows. Innovation is essential to the quality and effectiveness of procurement. Also, public procurement is a substantial part of this country’s economic activity. If it promotes innovation, it can make a significant difference to our overall economic performance and to reconciling our productivity problems. The fact that, in the absence of Amendment 4, the Bill would make no reference to innovation is such an omission that, on those grounds alone, Amendment 4A should be added back to the Bill.

When we tabled our amendment, the noble Earl, Lord Devon, the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, and I tried to ensure that the national procurement policy statement was clear about what we regarded as enduring strategic priorities. We have backed off from that. My noble friend and the Minister in the other place were clearly told that we must have maximum flexibility. I still do not understand why the Russian invasion of Ukraine might mean that public procurement in the United Kingdom should not have regard to social value; none the less, leaving that to one side for a moment, I accept that there is an ideological commitment in government to the idea that everything that government does must be so flexible that you cannot even predict some of the basic principles within it.

We have dropped the strategic priorities; we have made them principles. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, rightly has it, we have moved from “must include” to “have regard to”. Therefore, Ministers are not constrained to include in the statement innovation, the achievement of social value, the achievement of environmental objectives or, for that matter, transparency, integrity, fair treatment, non-discrimination and value for money. However, the idea that any of these things would be left out of a national procurement policy statement is wholly unacceptable.

I come back to the essential question: what are we trying to do? We are trying to set the framework for contracting authorities to undertake public procurement. From our point of view, the statement should include whatever the Government think it should include but it should not exclude such basic central principles of public procurement. We have only to ask ourselves what conclusion we would draw if the Government were to send a draft of an NPPS to Parliament which left these things out. In my view, we would have to reject it. What is the benefit of that? Better to put it in the Bill now, make it clear to Ministers and, frankly, officials, that it should be in the statement so that, when the draft of the NPPS comes, we can tick the box, send it forward and approve it.

The noble Earl, Lord Devon, will add matters on social value. I just say that we may have left the EU public procurement regime but, when you look at the centrality of social value to public procurement in other jurisdictions across Europe, the idea that you would not seek social value through public procurement seems wholly unacceptable.

I was quite struck by the paucity of argument presented in Committee in the other place when our amendment to the Bill was deleted. In addition to:

“It needs to be as flexible as possible”,—[Official Report, Commons, 31/1/23; col. 54.]


which was predictable, what irritated me especially, as my noble friend on the Front Bench is now aware, was that references to integrity, transparency and value for money are already in the Bill, in Clause 12. The Committee in the other place clearly paid no attention to the Bill in front of it, since Clause 12 relates to covered procurement. As we noticed in our debates in Committee, the national procurement policy statement is not confined to covered procurement. It extends to all procurement by government, though not including the NHS, which for these purposes seems to be excluded from “public authorities”, which is a curious definition in itself.

We knew that the NPPS was wider. The Committee at the other end seemed somehow to imagine that covered procurement was enough, but it excludes everything under about £112,000 in value. Therefore, many small procurements would not be affected by it. It simply is not acceptable. We need to go back and ask the Commons to think again about the exclusion of such central principles from the national procurement policy statement. It has been a long time coming back. We are nine months on from the point at which we sent the Bill to the Commons. We took some time getting it to the point that we did. Noble Lords will recall that on the first day in Committee we received 50 government amendments, this clever idea of covered procurement arising only at that point and not in the original draft of the Bill.

To make a final, acerbic comment, I find it somewhat astonishing that during the passage of the Bill the Government have been able to make many hundreds of amendments that they chose to make. At this stage, we are asking for only a small handful that the Lords want to make. The Government at this point might just bend and accept those amendments.

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, I regret that due to professional commitments I was unable to contribute as much as I would have liked to earlier stages of the Bill. However, I added my name to two amendments on Report, both of which focused on the importance of recognising social value in the development of the national procurement policy statement. I am grateful to the noble Lords who led on those amendments with such success—the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Worthington, and the noble Lords, Lord Coaker, Lord Fox and Lord Lansley—a truly cross-party team.

The recognition of social value now returns for our consideration with Amendments 4A and 4B. I am again grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for taking the lead and so succinctly gathering in one place the essential priorities and principles to which regard should be given. Chief among them from my perspective is public benefit through the achievement of social value.

I should at this stage disclose my membership of the APPG for Social Enterprise and explain that I was privileged to chair its inquiry into the performance of social enterprise during the dark days of the pandemic. The conclusions of that report were compelling, revealing without doubt that social enterprises—that is, enterprises committed to the delivery of social value alongside more commercial ambitions—performed considerably better during the pandemic than their competitors, be they charities or strictly commercial enterprises. Social enterprises were more resilient, lighter on their feet and more diverse in their employment and service delivery. They delivered a lot more of the smaller contracts—which, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, identified, would not be covered by Clause 12—and they performed better economically.

Where they performed much worse than their competition was in their ability to secure support and funding from local and central government through public procurement. We noted that this was a particular issue in England, as compared with Wales and Scotland, because in those jurisdictions social enterprises and social value are identified as priorities within their public procurement strategies. With this amendment we will achieve the same and ensure that the delivery of social value is a priority for government. I urge that it is supported.

Climate Change

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and the other Cross-Bench Peers who have supported this important debate. For my contribution this evening, I will stick in the mud to focus on our coastal fringes and particularly our intertidal habitat. As we all know from our earliest biology lessons, this is where terrestrial life began, and terrestrial life’s survival in the face of climate change depends on how we manage it.

This habitat is the most productive for protein, offering unparalleled biodiversity. It will protect our largest towns and cities from storms and rising tides; it provides carbon sequestration potential and cleans pollutants from the water; it is easily accessible, to the benefit of our health and well-being—yet it is ever changing and highly vulnerable, requiring constant, active and sympathetic management. Unfortunately, national policy and regulation largely ignore it. My request to the Minister is that he explain what the Government intend to do about this.

I declare my interests as set out in the register, including my membership of the Wetlands APPG and my stewardship of intertidal habitat on the Exe estuary. I also work for a law firm that is a leading adviser on natural capital and was recently engaged by a leading NGO to consider the regulation of our marine and coastal environment.

If we are to adapt to climate change, we need to regulate accordingly. Regulation of our natural capital has traditionally been siloed between Natural England’s responsibility for land and the Marine Management Organisation’s oversight of the marine environment. During the passage of both the Agriculture Act and the Environment Act this was noted repeatedly, including the failure of ELMS and other programmes to include the intertidal space, which provides such opportunity for the propagation of shellfish, seagrass and seaweed.

The UK shellfish industry generates nearly £l billion in revenue per annum, much of which is a high-margin, export-led business that supports coastal employment. Across the south-west the industry is threatened by warming water and the invasive Pacific oyster, which is rendering large areas of foreshore simply inaccessible and unfarmable. There is no joined-up strategy to combat it.

Seagrass absorbs and stores carbon and provides a vital home for nature. Healthy meadows can help protect communities from the impacts of coastal erosion and flooding, as well as reducing coastal pollution. We have lost up to 92% of the UK’s seagrass meadows.

Seaweed farming is both a regenerative food production method and a nature-based solution. It does not require additional land, feed, fresh water, fertiliser or pesticides, making it a very low-impact production method. It has the added advantage of absorbing excess nutrients from the sea, such as nitrogen and phosphorus. It can also temporarily remove carbon from the ocean and displace carbon-intensive products, helping to combat climate change.

Across the UK, ground-breaking projects in these industries experience delays and barriers in relation to licensing, impinging on the wider efforts to restore oceans, shift to sustainable food production and adapt to climate change. Concerns have been raised about the cost, complexity and time it takes to apply for licences and the lack of consistency from licensing bodies. The current licensing regime is simply not fit for purpose because it was designed to regulate building, development and extractive industries and was aimed at preventing damage to coastal habitats. It has the effect of inhibiting projects which would actively benefit coastal habitats and help us to adapt.

If we are to deliver on the environmental adaptation commitments of this Government, it is essential that we have a regulatory regime that is fit for purpose. I look forward to the Minister’s response and ask that he takes this issue forward with the appropriate departments across Whitehall.

House of Lords: Regional Representativeness

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord that levelling up is important, and this Government have many policies pursuing just that. He talks about representation. For me, the House of Commons is about ensuring that every part of the United Kingdom is properly represented in Parliament. There are also devolved Parliaments. By contrast, the House of Lords does not represent particular territories or constituencies; with the help of vetting by HOLAC, it draws on an array of expertise and talent right across the board and from many different sectors of society.

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for asking this important Question. Does the Minister agree that having a non-partisan champion for each county, with both residence and long-term community relations in such counties, offers considerable benefits—not least over 800 years of precedence? I note my interest as the Earl of Devon.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 13th July 2022 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise; this is my first appearance on this Bill as I missed Second Reading. I rise to support the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. I have put my name to her Amendment 75A; I equally put my name to her Amendments 47A and 52A, which also go to the issues of social value and social enterprise.

I should note that I am a member of the APPG for Social Enterprise. Last year, I chaired an inquiry into the performance of social enterprise during the pandemic; we reported at Christmas last year. The outcome of that was to highlight the remarkable performance of social enterprise during the chronic conditions of the pandemic. However, it also highlighted how little understanding of social enterprise there was in government, particularly in Westminster but also in local government. We discovered that this was not as common Wales or Scotland, because social enterprise and social value are built into the fabric of their public procurement, which is so much better than what we have in England. I just wanted to make that point briefly. Amendment 75A is a means of addressing this issue and ensuring that local government is familiar with the role of social value and the purpose of social enterprise.

Before I sit down, I will just endorse and support Amendment 66 from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. I do a lot of work with the South West Food Hub on the absolutely critical need for the procurement of good, healthy, locally sourced food, so I give this amendment my solid support.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, public and parliamentary debate on the national procurement policy statement is a very important aspect of this Bill. So is the relationship between Clauses 11 and 12. The Minister will have noted the consensus view across this Committee that clear principles and objectives should be included in the Bill—that is, primarily in Clause 11. We still hope that we will return on Report with appropriate language to enshrine

“in law the principles of public procurement”;

I have taken that from paragraph 27 of the Government’s response to the Transforming Public Procurement consultation, which they now seem to have forgotten. That document also states that 92% of those consulted were in favour of the proposed legal principles; it is therefore unacceptable that they have disappeared from the Bill as presented to this House. I cannot understand why the Government have abandoned their response, having undertaken an extensive consultation of that nature.

At present, the Bill leaves articulation of the principles of public procurement almost entirely to the Minister in post at the time, with the completed document to be laid before Parliament and subject to the negative procedure if time is found within the 40-day period to debate it. That is clearly inadequate. It stems from a resistance to parliamentary scrutiny and accountability that has been characteristic of the Johnson Government and, in particular, of Jacob Rees-Mogg in his various ministerial roles. However, it is not compatible with the principles of parliamentary sovereignty or the conventions of our unwritten constitution. I will do the Minister the compliment of assuming that he has always been unhappy with this approach to executive sovereignty and will be happier if the next Prime Minister returns to proper constitutional practice.

I have Amendment 75 in this large group, which seeks to ensure that a review of compliance with the national procurement policy statement takes place within three years, noting in particular how far it has in practice protected and promoted the interests of small suppliers, social enterprises and voluntary organisations in that period—a matter that concerns noble Lords across all parties in this Committee. I support the intentions of many of the other amendments in this group, from the insistence of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, that such a policy statement must be published on a regular basis to those that insist that it should cover a specific range of issues including social objectives, concern for the environment and measures to combat climate change.

Many of us would consider including climate change and sustainable development concerns as particularly important when some candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party are playing to climate change deniers on their party’s right. The Minister’s dogged resistance to putting any closer definition of the principles and objectives in the Bill makes the quality and regularity of this statement all the more important.

Good government requires a degree of continuity, not rapid switches of emphasis and guidance every time Ministers or Prime Ministers change. I remind the Minister that under our single-party Conservative Government since 2015 we are now about to embark on the fourth Prime Minister—four Prime Ministers in seven years under the same party. Some major departments of state are now on their eighth or ninth Minister. That is not continuity. Continuity and a degree of consensus are what contractors to government want, and that is more likely to emerge from cross-party debate in Parliament informed by wider public attention and contributions from stakeholders in the sector. That would promote greater stability and continuity both when Governments are in power for extended periods and when Governments change. Stability and a degree of continuity are what contractors want to see in their relations with government.

Restriction of Public Sector Exit Payments Regulations 2020

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, this is not my area of expertise but since April I have been assisting Exeter City Council with its Covid response, chairing a visitor economy recovery group, from which I have learned first hand about the dedication and diligence of local government staff, the current unprecedented demand for their services and the budgetary cliff off which they are being driven.

These regulations come at a challenging time for local government. Although I generally support the aim of reining in six-figure public sector pay-offs to high earners, that is not the concern. The worry is the impact, as discussed by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, of the pension strain payments for long-serving local government staff earning under £50,000. Those who have worked for many years in housing, benefits, environmental health or social work, and those who might have turned down much better-paid private work to continue their dedicated public service, stand to lose out on pension benefits that they have worked towards for decades if they are made redundant or seek early retirement after the age of 55. Why is that?

This is not a new issue. I see from Hansard that it was raised a number of times in November 2015, along with the serious concerns being raised now by the Local Government Association and the ALACE, which were well rehearsed nearly five years ago.

Local government is staring into a very bleak winter, with redundancies looking inevitable. The regulations as drafted will hit the pensions of the longest-serving and the most modestly paid. They will remove much-needed staffing autonomy from local councils, and, given that there is no equality impact assessment, they may well impact certain groups disproportionately, but we do not know that. Exeter City Council, for example, has over 700 staff members, whose average age is over 50. Why has no EIA been published?

I understand that the Government’s preferred solution is to change the Local Government Pension Scheme to avoid significant pension reductions. However, the MHCLG consultations commence this month but do not close until November. Why do these changes to local government pensions not take place at the same time as the regulations, and why wait until now to begin a consultation?

Loyal long-term local government employees are being poorly treated and taken for granted. This is not the message that the Government should send out just as they tighten the lockdown. What assurances can the Minister provide?

Finally, I understand that the medical professional bodies, such as the GMC, are concerned that they might be included under these regulations. Will the Minister please provide some clarification on that point?

Parliament: Restoration and Renewal Project

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, giving personal views from this Dispatch Box is probably not the wisest thing. On the timescale, again, the sponsor body is independent. It will conduct its review on the timescale it has set out, but I understand that it expects and hopes to report this autumn.

[The Earl of Devon (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the Earl of Devon was first summoned to Shrewsbury, so I am not averse to sitting elsewhere, but I am very concerned about delay. We passed the restoration and renewal Act last autumn with an urgent mandate to get to work immediately to save the Palace. Nowhere in the Act is the sponsor body empowered to second-guess that mandate. Under what authority is the sponsor body conducting its strategic review, and why is it not complying with its obligation to restore this key national heritage?

[Lord True]

My Lords, again, the sponsor body is independent. It was obliged under the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act, which your Lordships assented to, to prepare a strategy on this and to consult Members of each House of Parliament. That was published in May and, as I said, I hope and understand that the sponsor body will report in the autumn, but I take note of what the noble Earl said.

Covid-19: Wedding Venues

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, my noble friend raises an important practical point. The 28-day waiting period before weddings is set in primary legislation and has not changed, but if there are exceptional circumstances in which it is believed that the waiting period should be shortened, upon giving notice one can ask for consideration from the Registrar-General to do so. The impact of Covid-19 is identified as an exceptional circumstance, but each application will have to be considered as an individual situation.

[Earl of Devon (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I note my interest in a heritage wedding venue, where all 2020 weddings have been postponed. Wedding venues and, more importantly, their local vendors and suppliers face a long, uncertain struggle. Every garbled government announcement causes further uncertainty for the businesses and for those couples who are so desperate to wed. When will the Government provide a clear roadmap for restarting this key industry, which is such an important thread in our social fabric?

[Lord True]

My Lords, the Government have announced important measures to assist the hospitality industry from July and to enable weddings. I remind the noble Earl that we are still in a Covid emergency and the Government have to proceed cautiously.