Government Vehicles: Procurement

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord raises a valid point. The Government’s industrial strategy, which was published a few months ago, says that the Government are providing industry with visibility in terms of potential procurement opportunities across 19 sectors, of which this is one. Improving pre-procurement dialogue is a key part of that process. I know that my noble friend the Minister at the Department for Transport and her colleagues are in touch with the automotive industry to make sure that it can respond to the challenges that are behind many of the questions that I have been asked this afternoon.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister spotted that the word “fleet” got me rather excited, but my question relates to procurement. I have concerns, after my time in government, that departments play shops. For a particular department, it might make sense to go for a cheaper option, but the totality of the real cost for the country is never properly calculated by the Treasury. For example, not giving work to a certain factory means that it will go bust and we will have to pay money for unemployment and retraining, but these things are never taken into the calculation. We are very bad, sometimes, about making an overall decision about what is the best value for money for the nation, rather than a shortcut for a particular department. Is the Minister happy that the Treasury takes those factors into account when fleet—I am talking about car fleets, sadly—decisions are made?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Government try to use their purchasing power to get the best value for money when it comes to investing in these vehicles. The Crown Commercial Service aggregates, through the vehicle purchase e-auction programme, the requirements across all government departments. It then has what is called a reverse auction three or four times a year to get the best bids for the vehicles that it needs. When it commissions the vehicles, it looks at the overall cost, not just the upfront cost. The contracts quite often go further than just the purchase and include servicing and repairs throughout the life of the vehicle.