Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Lennie

Committee stage
Monday 23rd January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lennie (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 1 would prevent regulations being made in relation to cases falling outside the scope of the procurement chapters of the free trade agreements. The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, will speak to Amendments 6 and 19 in this group.

Amendment 1 would remove subsections (2) and (3) from Clause 1. Clause 1 provides a power for appropriate authorities to make regulations for two purposes. Subsection 1(a) allows an appropriate authority to make regulations for the purpose of implementing the government procurement chapters in the FTAs. Subsection 1(b) allows an appropriate authority to make regulations for the purposes of making other changes for matters arising out of, or related to, the government procurement chapters in the FTAs.

The Explanatory Notes state:

“Clause 1(2) allows the regulations under subsection 1(b) to be made also for cases falling outside the scope of the government procurement Chapters to provide for general application”,


and that

“Clause 1(3) clarifies that a case is outside the scope of a government procurement Chapter if that Chapter does not impose an obligation on the UK in respect of that case, i.e. it is not an obligation owed specifically in the Chapter … The effect of subsection 1(b) read with 1(2) is that certain changes made to domestic law to implement the UK-Australia FTA, i.e. in respect of the rules in the text of the government procurement Chapter … can apply generally and not only to suppliers from Australia. This will ensure procurement regulations remain uniform and coherent by not imposing different or conflicting procurement procedures on contracting authorities for procurements covered by the FTA, and ensure the UK can implement its obligations in the FTA in a way that is consistent with the UK’s other international procurement obligations.”

This explanation makes sense; it is of course important that procurement regulations remain uniform and coherent.

Our intention with this amendment is simply to probe the scope of this, as it reads as almost limitless. Can the Minister tell me whether any case could be outside the scope of the Government’s procurement chapters? Are there any limits on this? What is a “case” defined as?

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 6 and 19 in this group. The questions posed by the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, in moving Amendment 1 are very sensible. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

According to today’s press, we are now 15 years behind on the commitment that we would reach £1 trillion of trade within a decade. It is now estimated that the target set by the coalition in 2012 will not be achieved until beyond 2035. This highlights the fact that we are starting to see the consequences of the significant non-tariff barriers introduced by this Government over recent years. Therefore, it is vital that mechanisms are as streamlined as possible for procurement and the rest of the trade agreements.

Amendment 6 is designed to probe the discrepancies in threshold levels in the Government’s procurement legislation, currently going through the House of Commons and which has been through scrutiny in the House of Lords. It probes why they are different for those seeking procurement opportunities for Australia as compared with those seeking them here at home. If you are a business seeking to bid for procurement in the UK, you now have to operate under quite a markedly different approach from that if you are looking for procurement opportunities within Australia.

I welcome the Minister’s letter to noble Lords, which he promised at the end of Second Reading and fulfilled. It highlights what we knew: that, factually, there is a difference in the threshold levels. The letter simply states that Australia was not willing to have the same thresholds as us, and so we simply said that we would have its thresholds. What did we get in return? If this is a concession to Australia then surely we got something in return as far as access is concerned.

The report on the agreement from the Australian Parliament’s treaties committee makes for interesting reading, as does our own report from the House of Lords International Agreements Committee. The Australian report is 225 pages long and can be summarised as: “We got a good deal.” Our House of Lords report, which is 36 pages long, can be summarised from our point of view as: “No, we didn’t.”

The Australian report highlights the fact that the Australians wanted to maintain their levels of thresholds—that was very clear. Thresholds are important; a considerable amount of scrutiny that we did on the procurement agreement was about whether the procurement would be below or above the threshold. If it is below the threshold, the reporting mechanisms, the contracts approach, and the way that schemes or pooled contracts can be put together are different. So we now have a higher rate for Australia.

At Second Reading, I raised the fact that this was done by subcentral contracting bodies. The Minister’s letter to me says that in effect I was wrong in saying that Australia was unique, because Canada has the same approach as Australia’s—but not for subcentral levels. The agreement that we rolled over for Canada for the CETA agreement, has the lower threshold, and we have now gone to the higher one. We are simply trying to find out what we got in return for providing a concession to Australia over the threshold levels. The higher threshold means that there will be extra complexity for businesses.

Amendment 19 is simply a probing amendment on the point that was raised earlier on the Procurement Bill by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, which was simply trying to seek protections. If we try to change this Bill and its mechanisms for the good, those changes will be protected by the Procurement Bill, which, as the Committee will be aware, will automatically repeal this one. We have the rather ridiculous situation that we are in Committee for a Bill that will be automatically repealed by a Bill that is going to go into Committee in the House of Commons. This is a mechanism to try to protect any of what we do. On that basis, I hope the Government might be minded to accept Amendment 19, or indeed they might have their own mechanisms or commitments, so that we are not wasting our time in Committee.