Procurement Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Fox and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 11th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox (LD)]

Eagle—thank goodness. I thought it was an evil eye. I was going to describe it as beady. I thought his “evil eye” was going to be upon the Minister and I was a little concerned for her safety. It is getting late.

Moving on, as my noble friend set out, we will support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. There can be no place in the UK supply chain for businesses that engage in this behaviour, and we have to be absolutely sure that there is no place, which is why the noble Lord is right to want to explicitly write this in. I regret that the fact that my noble friend Lady Brinton’s amendment was not accepted means that if the noble Lord is successful, his amendment will not apply to the National Health Service, which seems rather unfortunate as it would probably be the prime customer. None the less, getting it in writing and putting it in there is very important and will be enthusiastically supported.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be very brief. I thank both noble Lords for such excellent speeches on really important issues and important amendments that have been brought back for further discussion. The noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, again and again draws our attention to where we need to act on wrongs in this world. Clearly, we must do all we can to tackle modern slavery, genocide and crimes against humanity. He is right to draw our attention to the serious examples he gave us in his speech of where this is happening. We believe that procurement policy can and should contribute to that end where it can. I say to the Minister that the Government have listened to much of what the noble Lord has said; we have moved forward to some extent on this.

My noble friend Lord Hunt’s amendment clearly spells out why we need to be doing something about this. Reading his amendment, what struck me was the definition. I will read it, because I think it is at the crux of this:

“‘Forced organ harvesting’ means killing a person without their consent so that their organs may be removed and transplanted into another person”.


I cannot think of many things more appalling than that, so we fully support my noble friend. He deserves the thanks of the House for bringing this forward. He has our full support, but I wish the Government would consider amending the Bill in this way.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Debate between Lord Fox and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Thursday 2nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 42, 43 and 50 and the Clause 1 stand part debate, to which I have added my name.

What was clear from last week’s debate—we have alluded to it a number of times since then—is that the Government have absolutely no intention of providing a comprehensive list of retained EU law under the jurisdiction of this Bill. It is clear that the decisions taken by departments to retain, amend or revoke will be announced unilaterally via the dashboard. In the case of revoking, it is an act of either commission or omission—we will not know until we see it on the dashboard. However, if there is no list then we will not even know that something has been revoked. The former—the lack of a list—informs the latter: the fact that we will not know whether laws have been revoked or otherwise.

That is why this set of amendments, in the number of forms that we have seen, is so important. Through Amendment 32, we have heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, my noble friend Lord Beith, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, how the Government should set out in advance what they are seeking to do and give Parliament a chance to overrule the Executive and choose to retain specific named instruments, rather than waiting for the automatic disposal of these laws. The noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Kirkhope, in Amendment 44, and the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, in Amendment 141A, set out other ways of seeking to achieve a similar end. The point has been made that there are a number of ways of doing this.

It was a pleasure to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, set out Amendment 43, to which I have added my name; I was happy to do so because, in the amendment, she sets out very ably a process by which Parliament can retain its control over what is going on in this law. It would avoid the really important issue, to which I and other Peers have already alluded, of the unknown repeal of laws—that is, the accidental revocation or deliberate obfuscation of revocation that may happen as a result of this law. This is a well-drafted amendment that we would be very happy to see go forward.

Amendment 42, in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Ludford, complements what we have heard already about a process of consultation, about how these laws and regulations should be consulted on. It sets out four objectives for the consultation. The first is to consider whether the legislation under review is fit for purpose. It may not be. Ministers have talked about reindeer and whatnot. I am sure that we do not really need those but there cannot be many of the 4,000 or so laws that refer to reindeer. Let us assume that that the majority of them are addressing areas of concern to the greater public. Are they fit for purpose?

The second objective is to consider whether alternative regulation would achieve different or preferable goals. The third objective is to consider whether alternative regulation would provide greater benefits to consumers, workers, businesses, the environment, animal welfare, and public safety, to name a few. The fourth objective is to consider whether alternative regulation would provide greater legal certainty, and there is a great deal of legal uncertainty coming the way of this Bill if it stays as it is. I cannot see why this approach is unreasonable, and I am sure that the Minister will agree with me and adopt this straightaway.

Much has been said about sunsetting. Some speakers on the Government Benches have set out their view that without sunsetting, departments would somehow be dragging their heels. The Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said last week to your Lordships that

“the sunset was introduced to incentivise departments to think boldly and constructively about their regulations and to remove unnecessary regulatory burdens.”—[Official Report, 23/2/15; col. 1820.]

Just before lunch, we heard the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, say that the sunset’s purpose is to “incentivise genuine reform”. These confirm that the purpose of the sunset is, in the Government’s view, to get civil servants to get on with it. That may be so, but what is it that are they getting on with, or that the Government would have them get on with? I suggest that they are injecting the largest single slug of legislative uncertainty into national life that any of us can remember. I say to my noble friend Lord Beith that I am afraid that I do not go back to the 1600s, when it last happened—

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Neither does the noble Lord, Lord Beith!

[Lord Fox (LD)]

I beg my noble friend’s pardon. Perhaps there is a reason why the departments might favour a slower, stepwise and consultative approach. We have also tabled an amendment that opposes Clause 1 standing part of the Bill. That is to give time to have that stepwise, considered and consultative approach, as many of us believe it should be. It removes the sunset altogether and it gives us time. Clearly, this element of the Bill, if not the others, was the product of the imagination of the Conservative MP for North East Somerset. This Bill is a legacy from his short-lived time in BEIS and, like almost everything produced in that thankfully brief period of administration, it delivers chaos and an unworkable Bill. The Government Front Bench might appreciate our help in removing this very difficult thing, for what will become a very difficult effort.

Finally in this group, my noble friend Lady Ludford and I have tabled Amendment 50, which seeks to deliver a super-affirmative process. I should point out that the dash comes between “super” and “affirmative”; it is the affirmation that is super, not the process. The process is for revoking EU-derived subordinate legislation or retained direct EU legislation. It was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, earlier. Once again, this is about parliamentary scrutiny. The amendment seeks to address the huge democratic shortcomings of this Bill, as outlined by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. In the “Bypassing Parliament” section of its report, the committee observes:

“The Bill gives to Ministers (rather than Parliament) the power to decide, in relation to a considerable amount of REUL, what is to be … revoked and not replaced … revoked and replaced with something broadly similar … revoked and replaced with something very different, or … retained.”


That is, in a nutshell, what we are discussing. The committee also noted:

“Parliament will not know, at the time it grants the powers, what the Government intend to do with those powers.”


I will not dwell on this amendment to create the super-affirmative process, except to highlight a couple of features. The first, under proposed new subsection (2), is:

“For each instrument that is proposed to be revoked, a Minister of the Crown must lay before Parliament … a draft of the regulations; and … a document which explains the draft regulations.”


As the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, said, there is a period of 30 days for this process.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Fox and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Report stage
Wednesday 30th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate that covered a wide range of interests. It is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and the case he made in favour of Amendment 72 was strong and subtle because by acknowledging the role that Clause 40 plays in this Bill, he also acknowledges the need for Amendment 72.

The noble Lord mentioned Amendment 113. The purpose of having the list in it is to make it clear that in the past, NHS staff have not been included and there are very real examples of problems in this area. Its purpose was to draw your Lordships’ attention to the need to include that cadre of people, who are making very large public procurements, in the realm of this Bill. He will be no doubt delighted to know that it is unlikely that I will press the amendment to a vote.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, ably and clearly laid out why he has tabled his amendment and the concerns in this area. They partly remain from the debate we had in Committee, but they have also been raised on a number of further occasions, including earlier today. We have heard why people are concerned and why they think this amendment is needed. There are concerns around the VIP lanes and the way that different contracts were awarded during the Covid pandemic.

Listening to the debate today, earlier debates and other discussions, including in the media, as the noble Baroness said, it is clear that we have a real problem with a loss of trust in the procurement system, particularly government contracts. For me, this Bill is an opportunity to restore that trust. The Minister will no doubt say that the Government have listened and heard what was said, and the VIP lanes will not happen again. I trust what the Minister says, and we know that other people have said the same, but my concern is that if you do not close loopholes in legislation, they are still there for others to exploit. In my opinion, this opens a loophole because it makes it possible to hand out contracts in the way it was done before.

It is incredibly important that we retain the ability to procure when the usual channels need to be speeded up, for example, or if there is a need to do things in a slightly different way. Importantly, this clause allows that, but at the same time we must not allow this loophole to exist going forward. That is why we support this amendment and if the noble Lord wishes to press it to a Division, he will have our full support.

The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, who has been extremely clear in putting across the concerns all the way through the progress of this Bill, made some really important points about late payments. Again, I know the Minister is keen to do what she can to resolve that problem, so I look forward to her response.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Fox and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Wednesday 26th October 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, pointed out, this is a wide range of varying amendments on a scale that, I suggest, is suboptimal for the proper scrutiny of this Bill. Frankly, it is symptomatic of the whole nature of this Bill and the way in which we are expected to scrutinise it. That said, because there are so many different things in here, there is a danger of some of the gems getting buried. I am going to burnish just a few of them but I hope that the Minister will be able to look back through the Marshalled List and Hansard to make sure that they are not overlooked, even if she is unable to comment fully on the whole range of amendments.

Those of us who can remember the beginning of this group will remember that we were talking about KPIs. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and my noble friend Lord Scriven, talked about them, as will I when I speak to Amendments 275A and 276ZA—I have never seen a “ZA” before—in my name.

Amendment 275A would remove the power granted by the Bill to the appropriate authority—otherwise known as the Secretary of State, as far as I understand it—to change the threshold at which KPIs may be published. At the moment, the threshold is set at £2 million. If my noble friend Lord Scriven, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, were successful in changing the KPI regime and making it rigorous, the Secretary of State could at a stroke remove a large proportion, if not all, of public procurement from that KPI obligation simply by arbitrarily lifting the threshold. This is a process that should not be left to the Secretary of State alone; that is what Amendment 275A refers to.

Furthermore, Amendment 276ZA would ensure that the regulations could be used only to reduce the threshold, not increase it. I must say, it is ingenious; I would not have thought of it on my own account. These are well-worded and reasoned amendments. I am sure that, if the Minister were not at the Dispatch Box, the Back-Bench version of her would have been making this speech because these amendments are of course hers. When she was promoted, she swiftly withdrew them. Because I agree with them and think that they are good amendments—I did not do this simply to have some fun; these are important issues—I put them back in for your Lordships to consider. The threshold at which the KPIs are published is absolutely central to whether we have a KPI system that works. It is important that Parliament is left with the right to do that.

I shall speak to another gem: Amendment 272 in the names of my noble friends Lord Wallace and Lord Scriven and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I will not speak at length. In previous debates, Ministers have argued against adding principles and things to this Bill, but central to the Green Paper was a section on the principles of public procurement. The Government accept that there should be principles here and have advanced some, so putting into the Bill the principle that procurement should help local communities with the deployment of sustainable local improvement would seem to be central to what this Government want to do, especially given their stated aim of bringing local communities and the quality of life in them up.

I also associate myself with my noble friend Lord Scriven’s speech on Amendment 353AA; it sounds more like a battery than an amendment. I look forward to his further speech on that.

Finally, I want to say a word in favour of the amendments in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Mendelsohn and Lord Aberdare, which seek to address further the pernicious practice of late payment. This is the Procurement Bill and it is about public procurement. It is unthinkable to me that this Bill and the Act that will follow do not have something to say about late payment and something to improve this activity. Whether it will be along the lines of the noble Lords’ proposal, I do not know, but these are important points. This seems to be a genuine opportunity for the Minister. This is a cross-party concern. I am sure that the Minister, working with others, can come back on Report with something that will further stiffen the process. I suggest that the process of publishing, as set out by the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, would be a very good way of starting so that we can at least see where the poor behaviour lies.

I hope that, in the post-Committee quiet, the Minister can scrutinise where we are with all these amendments and come forward on Report with some sensible improvements based on them.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate that I hope has been helpful to the Minister. I have three amendments in this group. Amendment 273 requires that one KPI is compliant with the carbon-reduction plan. Tied into that is Amendment 274, which requires that, where public contracts in scope of the KPIs fall below the threshold for mandatory carbon-reduction plans, at least one KPI should assess the supplier’s performance against climate or environmental considerations.

As I said on Monday, the transparency requirements are very welcome. We believe they could provide the opportunity for contracting authorities and their suppliers to demonstrate that they are having regard to climate change and are managing the risks through regular environmental reporting as a KPI. However, those requirements are not set out in the Bill but will be left to secondary legislation. For example, they do not impose requirements in relation to the environmental commitments made by the supplier awarded the contract or for the regular reporting on whether the commitments have actually been met. We feel that that needs to be strengthened, which is why we have tabled the two amendments on this area.

My Amendment 353AA would create the process to ensure that contracting authorities safeguard the public interest. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for his support. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, gave a detailed explanation of the importance of this, so there is no need for me to go into any further detail. Looking at the public interest and the wider potential impacts of any contracts that are supplied is something that we need to be extremely aware of and cautious about.

I turn to other amendments in this group. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, made some important points here; we are very sympathetic to them and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts. These seem to be straightforward areas where the Bill could be improved. In particular, the noble Lord explained how the time modifications, going from one-10th to one-sixth, made sense and would make life a lot easier for people. Again, these are sensible amendments so it would be interesting to hear the Minister’s response.

My noble friend Lady Thornton has tabled some amendments around KPIs and social value, and we strongly support both of them. I am sure the Committee is aware that social value is included in the national procurement policy statement, but there is no reference to social value in the Bill itself, as has been said on a number of occasions when we have debated this in Committee. We have been told by officials—and by previous Ministers before the noble Baroness—that social value is integrated into the concept of public benefit, but we believe that “public benefit” is just too vague a concept and it is just not clear where social value sits within this framework. My noble friend raises an important point with her amendments, and I hope the Government will start to take this issue more seriously.

As usual, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, put her finger on an area that needs proper clarification. I am sure the Minister will have listened very carefully to everything she said.

The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, introduced some of the Liberal Democrat amendments by talking about the importance of sustainable local improvements and, again, the wider public benefit: what is this, what does it mean and what will we get out of it in the Bill? Again, a lot of what he was saying—and what the amendments from the Liberal Democrats are doing—is very similar to, and ties in with, the amendments we have put down: they look at the environmental and social value impacts and how we can build these into the Bill to make important improvements.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, made some important and specific points with her amendments, and I was happy to add my name to them. They draw attention to a really important issue, which has been missed out and is extremely pertinent at the moment when we consider current concerns over inflation—particularly food price inflation, as she mentioned—and the rise in prices more generally. Public sector catering businesses were really badly hit during the pandemic and are still struggling, so we need to pay proper attention to her amendments. If we are genuine about supporting SMEs, this is an area where they really need some strong support from the Government at the moment.

I commend my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn for his work on tackling the issue of late payment. His dogged approach to this has achieved much, but there is still much more to achieve. His amendments are very important and helpful; again, they are about helping SMEs, something the Minister has said time and again she wants to do.

As the noble Lord, Lord Fox, asked, why is there nothing on late payments, or the issues he raised in particular, in the Bill? This is a real opportunity to do that. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, raised similar issues around small and medium-sized businesses and the kind of support they need for procurement if they are to be able to make the most of the contracts that are out there for them. I totally agree with him on the issues around SMEs and the construction sector: it can be very difficult for SMEs to break into that sector, and very difficult for them to manage their cash flows if they start having issues around late payment, which unfortunately happens all too often. In addition, we would strongly support his request for picking up the meeting idea to see whether we can make some progress on this matter between Committee and Report.

To summarise, the Bill needs to ensure that it specifies that KPIs are flexible, proportionate, realistic, agreed properly with the provider and informed by engagement with the people accessing any services. These are helpful amendments, seeking to achieve many of these aims. I hope that the Minister is sympathetic to much that has been proposed and I look forward to her response.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Fox and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Monday 24th October 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, before the Minister finishes, I have two points. On the big question, I asked whether she thought that Clause 41 would prevent the VIP lane problems resurfacing or coming back. It would be good to get an answer to that, either now or later. In the Minister’s response on Amendment 239, I thought I heard her say that provisions in other parts of the Bill around operating ethically are, in spirit, reflected in Clause 41. “In spirit” is a very difficult concept to understand in law. I hope we can find a way of perhaps stiffening the spirit and making it actual. If there is a read-across, we need to find a way—either at the Dispatch Box, in some Pepper v Hart way, or within the words—to ensure that what the Minister says, which I take to be in good faith, is usable in the outside world once the Bill becomes an Act.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Perhaps I might add that what the Minister said makes a lot of sense and is helpful, but one of the problems we have is that we do not know how effective it is going to be and whether it would work until we get into that situation again. Is there any ability to build in a review once the system has been tested, perhaps against a major public problem like we had with Covid-19?

Procurement Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Fox and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Monday 4th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Fox (LD)]

I will correct my speech. It has not even been received by all the interested parties, which makes it worse.

Furthermore, to date, the Cabinet Office has not provided proper explanatory statements for each of the new government amendments. There is nothing in the current Marshalled List. The eighth group, which we had planned to debate today, contains a group of amendments that was wholly absent from the Minister’s original letter and the table that some, if not all, of us received when that letter came. Essentially, we have had no time—hours, at best—to consider these amendments.

More than that, the Minister stressed the value of the external community and the input we get from interested parties in this legislation. Those interested parties have not had a little time to consider these amendments; they have had no time. They are not on the record for those bodies that can feed in and positively reinforce your Lordships’ legislative process. We are missing all that. So never mind the unintended consequences of this legislation—we do not even know what the intended consequences are.

For this reason, I put the Minister on a warning that I will object to each of his amendments. When the Question on Amendment 1 is put, I will be not content. My understanding of the process is that, in Grand Committee, this will mean that the amendment will need to be withdrawn.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, where do I start? This is a really important and long-awaited Bill, so it is incredibly disappointing that, after so much time, the Bill was not fit to have been published when it was. With all these amendments, it is quite different from what we debated at Second Reading, even if many of the amendments are technical and there to tidy up. The Government really should have thought about this and got their act together before the Bill was published in the first place.

I know that the Minister is someone we can work with constructively on Bills—I appreciate that—but the Government’s incompetence over the weekend and the way this has been done challenge our ability to work together constructively. That is something else that disappoints me personally. As the noble Lord, Lord Fox, pointed out, it puts too much pressure on staff, who were expected to try to pull this Bill into shape over the weekend.

I reiterate completely what the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said about providing proper Explanatory Notes rather than annexe A, which was very thin on information and, in some cases, did not cover everything that the amendments were about. I spent most of the weekend trying to get my head around a lot of these amendments and cross-reference with the annexe. This is an important Bill and a lot of it is technical. I am not a procurement law expert, so I need support in the Explanatory Notes to understand exactly what is happening and what the amendments will do. When we are cross-referencing and trying to make sense of things, it is hard. As a member of the Opposition, let me say that this is not just about holding the Government to account; as I said, it is about working constructively to make legislation better. The Government have not helped us to do this.

My plea to the Minister is that we really need to move on from this and make sure that we can scrutinise Bills in a much better way. We are where we are with the Procurement Bill.

I totally understand and support what the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said about objecting to some of the amendments, because all this has been deeply unhelpful. Okay, we will do only three groups today, but at some point we have to get stuck in. It took me over two hours yesterday to go through all the amendments in group 1—group 2 has about three times that number. If we are going to do this properly, and actually look at the amendments rather than take the Government’s word on what is in them, it will be very time consuming.

I am afraid I am going to share with noble Lords some of what I did yesterday. It needs to be spelled out how complicated and confusing it is when we try to manage something such as this. Obviously, I started with group 1 and the proposed new Clause 1, which is about procurement and covered procurement. I read the amendment. I did not really understand what covered procurement it is, so I looked at section 5 of annexe A, which is just definitions; there is no further information. I still do not really understand the implications of changing this terminology. That is something we need to get across to the Government. We need to know exactly what is happening. This also has an impact on Amendments 55, 301, 405, 406, 408, 411, 416, 453 and 454. This affects many parts of the Bill, so we have to understand what is going on here.

I then looked at Amendment 172 to Clause 30, which would delete the word “procurement” and insert

“the award of a public contract”.

Apparently this is in annexe A, sections 3 and 8. Section 3 just says “replaces references to associated supply with associated person and expanding the concept”, but again, why? Why is that important? Why do we have to do that? Section 8 is about ensuring clarity on how a contracting authority must treat a supplier. Why do those changes do that? What is the purpose behind changing the terminology?

We have talked about the devolved Administrations. Amendments 282 to 285 to Clause 51 are about Northern Ireland. This is covered by sections 26 and 27 of annexe A, which say that “contract deal notices in respect of light-touch regime contracts must be published in 180 days.” Again, there is no proper explanation of how that affects Northern Ireland and what it means for the way it carries out procurement.

Moving on, I came to Amendments 342, 349, 356, 378, 380 and 383, which also refer to Northern Ireland, and Amendments 392 and 433, which refer to Wales. But the annexe also mentions Wales for the amendments that are supposed to be about just Northern Ireland, so it does not cover everything that the amendments say they do. I had had about four cups of coffee by this point just to try to keep going.

Amendments 377, 381, 385 and 387 would insert the word “was”, but the parts of the Bill they would amend already have the word “was”. Again, I am really confused about why we need another “was”.

Amendments 379, 382, 386 and 388 would insert

“as part of a procurement”.

If that is something that needed to be spelled out, I find it extraordinary that it was not written in in the first place.

Amendment 389 would delete subsection (10), which says:

“This section also does not apply to … defence and security contracts, or … private utilities.”


That is not tidying up or technical; it would delete a subsection that says something. I ask the Minister: what does that actually mean? What does it do? Why is that subsection being deleted? What is the purpose behind it?

Amendment 390 would delete a paragraph that reads,

“the value thresholds in subsection (2)”.

Again, it is not a tidying-up but a deletion. What does this actually mean? I am sure I am confusing everyone here because they do not have the Bill in the right places in front of them—I could read out the actual page numbers, if noble Lords want.

Amendment 391 would delete “in subsection (7)” on page 46, line 9. Why are those words being deleted? What is the purpose behind it?

Amendment 395—there are a lot like this—would delete “supplier” and add “person”. If this terminology was wrong, why was it not picked up so much earlier, when the Bill was being first drafted?

Amendment 424 would delete

“the award of a contract”

and insert “procurement”. Again, if that is the terminology that should have been used, why was it put in wrong in the first place?

In Amendment 425, “unless it is awarded” is to be deleted and “other than procurement” inserted. Those do not really seem the same to me, so what is the point of that change? What are the Government trying to do?

Amendment 426 would delete paragraph (c) on page 50, line 18:

“in relation to the management of such a contract.”

Why do we need paragraph (c) deleted? What is the purpose of it? Annexe A does not tell us any of this information.

Amendment 437 says:

“Page 53, line 3, leave out paragraphs (a) and (b)”.


Why are we deleting paragraphs (a) and (b)? What is the purpose and what are the consequences?

Amendment 438 says:

“Page 53, line 17, leave out ‘or services’ and insert ‘, services or works’”.


That seems the sort of thing that should have been drafted correctly in the first place.

Amendment 439 says:

“Page 53, line 26, leave out from ‘procurement’ to end of line 27”.


That is also the same in Amendment 462. Again, it looks to me like something that should have been done properly in the first place.

Amendment 440 says:

“Page 53, line 37, at end insert”,


and noble Lords can see the words on the Marshalled List—there is a lot there, and I really do not think that anyone wants me to read it all out. Again, this is not a technical adjustment but inserts quite a substantial amount of text. What are the implications? These may all be marvellous changes that benefit the Bill, but the point is that we do not know because we do not understand what is going on here.

Amendment 463 would delete subsection (8) on page 57, line 7. Amendments 439 and 462 do the same thing. What is the purpose of deleting subsection (8)?

I will not cover Amendment 528, because it has been moved to a different group. Noble Lords will be glad to know that I have only two left.

The annexe says that Amendment 540 is to define expressions. It inserts “covered procurement” and “debarment list”. What does “covered procurement” mean? Why does it reference the “debarment list”? That is similar to Amendments 542 and 543.

I will finish there. I just wanted to get across to the Committee and the Minister how very confusing this is and how little back-up information we have. We want to work constructively with the Minister. We want this to be a good Bill. For goodness’ sake, we just need to be able to get it sorted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister will pick up on the noble Earl’s Voltaire reference and tell us that we live in the best of all possible worlds. In my previous intervention, I mentioned the Government’s productivity. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, appears to be spoiling that, trying to do in two Bills what the Minister is trying to do in one. I think one Bill on this may be enough.

The point raised by the noble Lord on utilities, developed by the noble Earl, is extremely pertinent. It is a wider question that spreads into things such as the Building Safety Act, for example, where there is an assumption that utilities have a particular role to play. Are hardwiring, broadband and things such as that utilities or not? There are wider implications in this than simply the nature of the Bill. There are questions to be answered.

There is also a precedent already forming in the Bill about public services being carved out. That is the NHS issue, of course, where separate legislation is pulling out some aspects of the jurisdiction of this Bill. I do not expect to have that debate on this group, because the Minister has helped us to move everything into one group. We can have that debate later, but the principle of carving things out has been accepted by the Government. In that respect, the tablers of these amendments have something to go on. The interesting question they are providing through these amendments is: what is in and what is out? In a sense, that covers part of our curiosity around the Bill.

We should not be too obsessive about this, and nor should the noble Lord opposite, because Clause 109,

“Power to amend this Act in relation to private utilities”,

allows the Government to turn the whole thing upside down anyway. Clause 109(1) says:

“An appropriate authority may by regulations amend this Act for the purpose of reducing the regulation of private utilities under this Act.”


In fact, none of this debate makes any difference because, by regulation, the Government can ignore themselves in any case. We already have a problem, Houston.

The noble Lord talked about the difference between private delivery of services and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, talked about the fact that these organisations took on risk. With the train operating companies, when the risk turned around they just surrendered their licences. It is not real risk in the sense we might understand it in the private sector; it is a different world.

For that reason, I find it very difficult to go along with the amendments that try to extract private delivery of public service from the Bill’s ambitions. Large sums of money that have, lest we forget, originated from the pockets of UK citizens in the form of tariffs, fares or subsidies are then disbursed, or potentially disbursed, by the private companies as they procure things to deliver from their private sector the public services they are pledged and allowed by licence to supply. The Bill may, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, set out, interfere with the board’s licence to operate on a wider scale when it decides how to go about making purchases, but that is not unreasonable, given that it has hitched its wagon to a public service. When capital enters the business of delivering a public service, in my view it sacrifices the true independence to operate that it would have if it delivered a private service to private individuals. That is the deal: business gets to ply its trade on the condition that government and usually a regulator, but not always, meddle with its business model. It is a condition to operate.

For this reason, I am very interested to hear how the Minister will respond to your Lordships’ questions. These have been very worthwhile amendments and I thank the tablers. I look forward to the Minister explaining, first, what a “public service” is, secondly, what a “utility” is and, thirdly, where they sit in the context of the Bill.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate. It has been interesting to listen to comments on this area, particularly from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and my noble friend Lord Berkeley in their introduction to their amendments. Clearly, the changes proposed could have huge implications for utilities. There was a greater amount of flexibility for utilities in the Utilities Contracts Regulations 2016 that this Bill loses. The Government have acknowledged that consolidating the UCR with the Public Contracts Regulations will be a major and complex legislative exercise. Considering the issues we debated earlier, I hope that this is an area where we can work together to make sure we get it right for everybody involved.

One of the things we have to be careful about is not increasing bureaucracy when at the heart of the Bill is the desire to speed up procurement processes. I will note a few things in the briefings I have had on the Bill. First, it is worth noting the international Agreement on Government Procurement, which is within the framework of the WTO. It establishes rules requiring that

“open, fair and transparent conditions of competition be ensured in government procurement.”

Although it does that, it does not require WTO members to implement procurement rules for the utilities sector.

Furthermore, as we have heard, the UK is no longer obliged under EU law to implement procurement rules for the utilities sector. The UK’s utilities sector is, of course, very different from those in many of its European counterparts. Therefore, using solutions that were originally designed for European markets may not be appropriate for the UK. We need to take note of all that.