Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lord Moylan

Committee stage
Monday 20th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I had not expected to speak in this group, but since my noble friend Lord Northbrook has referred to a number of matters in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea—where I had the privilege of being deputy leader of the council for quite a period—I thought I would say just one or two things.

The current proposals for Sloane Square I have nothing to do with, I know nothing about; I ceased to be involved in the council in 2018, so I cannot speak for them. The other example my noble friend gave of what he called a “bogus consultation”, I was responsible for. Noble Lords might not be aware that this is an archaeological exercise because he has had to reach back to 2007. It is true that there were three consultation exercises, but I assure my noble friend that the first two—which supported the proposals—were not bogus at all; they were carried out in a very serious way. Indeed, the results surprised me in that there was as much support as there was. The third one that he referred to was conducted after a year of campaigning by opponents in what was quite the most unpleasant year of my life, certainly politically. It was a very long and really quite vicious campaign, all of it funded by the council so that the residents could have as much say as possible. It found against the scheme, which was not proceeded with.

Where I can find a level of agreement with my noble friend is in relation to BIDs. Here, I declare my interest in being a resident of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, as he is. I recently discovered that there is a BID to be introduced in Kensington High Street that is going to include Kensington Square, which I do not live in, but which I overlook from an adjacent street. The Kensington Square residents’ association has not been consulted about this, and it is to be introduced in Thackeray Street—which is where I do more or less live. The relevant residents’ association body for that has also not been consulted, as far as I can make out.

I think that in relation to BIDs my noble friend is putting his finger on a very important point: they do involve a transfer of say—I do not say control—to local businesses, which will pay extra money and expect to get what they want for that extra money. That transfer—those expenditures—can have an affect on local residents, and they should have some involvement in the establishment of a BID. I did not imagine I would ever have to go down the memory lane of Sloane Square improvements again in my life, but it is good that my noble friend has brought back those not always pleasant memories. I am with him when it comes to business improvement districts.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, our Amendment 511 is in this group. This is to ask the Secretary of State to inform each local authority of any new responsibilities before the commencement of relevant provisions.

Clause 222 has the list of the commencement of relevant provisions, so the amendment sits under Clause 222. However, it refers to Clause 74, which proposes to give the Secretary of State significant powers to intervene in a local authority regarding capital finance, including limiting borrowing and/or directing a local authority to sell specific assets. Such an intervention would follow a review that could be triggered by an assessment against a specific financial formula, the thresholds for which are to be set by regulation after the Bill has received Royal Assent.

So my question to the Minister is: how can we assess the impact of this provision without knowing those thresholds, without an impact assessment, and with incomplete information? Unsurprisingly, local government has expressed concerns about this. I understand that the measures relate to government concerns about some councils’ approach to capital and borrowing, but we need to set this in context. The LGA has drawn attention to the fact that rising energy prices, rising inflation and national minimum wage pressures are set to add around £3.6 billion in unforeseen extra cost pressures on council budgets by 2024-25. This is on top of the £15 billion cuts to council budgets by central government over the previous decade. Councils are simultaneously managing significant spending reductions and a growing demand for services.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lord Moylan

Committee stage
Monday 11th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 37 I will speak also to Amendment 460 in my name, which is closely linked to it. They work to a similar effect.

The purpose of these amendments is to go back to the question of what we are trying to achieve in this Bill—what its purpose is. I think we all agree that we want honesty, transparency and value for money in public procurement, in broad terms. However, as I said at Second Reading, it seems that what we are achieving is the bureaucratisation of honesty, whereas we should be focusing on the principles. We are creating a great beneficial bonus for lawyers, as was identified by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, earlier in Committee.

The key to real-world management of procurement is flexibility: to be able to respond to circumstances as they change during a tender. The current system, as I said at Second Reading, operates by setting up some conditions at the beginning over which the contracting authority has very great control. However, the system operates with great rigidity after that, so that it is very difficult to respond to changing circumstances in the course of the tender, or to surprising tenders that might be received.

I gave some examples at Second Reading, particularly the great non-existent iconic London bus shelter. I will detain noble Lords with a couple of further examples because I have been contacted since then by a former local government officer, for whom I have great respect, with two examples from the water sector. One related to a contract in which—I cannot supply the names—the officers had set up in advance the very precise and clear criteria by which to analyse the tenders they received for a waste collection contract. When one of the tenderers said “For certain types of waste, we will pay you in order to collect it”—which can make sense for certain recyclers—the whole assessment system effectively collapsed because it had not contemplated that sort of bid. As far as I am aware, everything had to be scrapped and started again, whereas a sensible approach would have allowed it to be flexibly adapted.

The second was a case where the local authority decided to take a relaxed “Let’s see what the market comes up with” approach to the tender—which can be appropriate as well—which was also for a waste collection contract. Unfortunately for the local authority, the cheapest bidder proposed collecting waste from households only once every four weeks—which was why it was the cheapest bidder. Of course, that was neither environmentally nor politically acceptable, but what could the authority do about it at that stage? All it could do was put pressure on the second-lowest bidder, which had sensibly proposed a two-week collection cycle, to cut its price to make it competitive with the four-week people. That duly went through. The two-week collection was awarded the tender, and within a matter of months the contract had effectively collapsed because, of course, the company could not make it work at the price it had been obliged to agree.

So why is there no flexibility in the system once the initial conditions have been set up? The practical reason is that the moment you say, “This is daft. We should be able to do something about it”, the people whom I described in my Second Reading speech as the high priests of procurement will turn up and say, “Ah, but if you do that, a disappointed bidder may sue you for failures in the process.” That is why you are tied at the outset with iron hoops to the process that you have set in motion.

What we need is a Bill that focuses on principles rather than on process. These two amendments do that by preventing disappointed bidders from suing a contracting authority for process faults; they could sue only for breach of the objectives set out in Clause 11. I remind noble Lords that those are to do with: delivering value for money; maximising public benefit; sharing information; acting with integrity and being seen to act with integrity; and equal treatment of tenderers.

It is important to explain that the approach I am proposing is not necessarily tied to Clause 11, because certain noble Lords are proposing that the Bill be augmented with a further set of principles—the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, adds a set of principles to the objectives in Clause 11. My amendment is perfectly compatible with her approach. If the House decides that the objectives for the Bill and the principles underlying it are not sufficiently and adequately expressed in Clause 11 and that further objectives and principles are required, on Report my amendment could be adapted to fit in with those principles. In this particular debate, I am staying neutral on the various proposals for how to develop the principles; I am totally neutral on the noble Baroness’s amendment, because mine would fit with it if that is the direction that the House and the Government wish to take. It is important to bear in mind that I am not tying this explicitly to Clause 11.

It is also important to bear in mind something else that I said. This is not a Bill for combating fraud, corruption or malfeasance in public office. All those things are criminal offences. If a contracting authority commits those offences, it will be prosecuted not under the terms of this Bill but under the relevant provisions of the criminal law—and quite properly. What this Bill does is create a huge bureaucratic minefield for contracting authorities in which disappointed tenderers can sue for some sort of compensation or damages—not that they do so very often, but it is a chilling factor when it comes to the flexibility that contracting authorities should rightly have.

Now, some people would say that this would radically alter the whole approach of the Bill. I think it is a fairly radical alteration of the Bill’s approach, but I speak with some experience when I say that it would also make it a workable Bill. I hope that my noble friend, if he or she is not immediately inclined to agree, will at least explain why this approach does not commend itself to Her Majesty’s Government.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 43 and 51 in this group and comment on the other amendments. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for supporting Amendment 43. Amendment 43 would reintroduce the procurement principles that were laid out in the procurement Green Paper and put them in the Bill.

The procurement Green Paper stated that the principles of the new regulatory framework for public procurement should be consistent with the Treasury’s Managing Public Money and the seven principles of public life as set out by the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The Green Paper states:

“The Government proposes that the following interdependent principles should be included in the new legislation.”


I shall remind noble Lords of the interdependent principles: they are public good, value for money, transparency, integrity, fair treatment of suppliers and non-discrimination. We absolutely support these principles, as I am sure all noble Lords do, because they are crucial for good business practice. Will the Minister say why these principles are not in the Bill as expected, particularly when we consider that, in the consultation on the Green Paper, the majority of the more than 600 respondents supported the principles for procurement being in the Bill? If we look at the Government’s response to the consultation, they said:

“The Government intends to introduce the proposed principles of public procurement into legislation as described.”


What has changed since then? Why now are those principles not in the Bill?

We believe that these principles are an integral part of procurement and a vital tool for setting out what this legislation wants to achieve and how its success will be judged. In the Bill as currently drafted there is a notable absence of mentions of equality or protected characteristics. The public sector equality duty requires public bodies to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between different people when carrying out their activities. This includes promoting equality and eliminating discrimination through public procurement as well as ensuring that the PSED is adhered to by those with whom public bodies contract.

Furthermore, this is important domestic legislation that asserts that international obligations on procurement in the UK entered into must be compatible with social objectives. We are concerned that the UK has signed a trade agreement with Australia that potentially threatens the inclusion of social criteria in procurement rules. The UK-Australia agreement states that social and labour considerations can be used in the government procurement process only when based on objectively justifiable criteria. This means that social criteria could be challenged by Australian companies via their Government as unjustified. Furthermore, the World Trade Organization’s government procurement agreement that the UK has acceded to does not contain social criteria for procurement. We believe that the current positron needs to be revised and that these principles should be clearly in the Bill.

Moving on to my Amendment 51, it would add proportionality to the procurement objectives. The Procurement Bill covers a wide range of goods, works and services and a range of scales from tens of thousands of pounds to hundreds of millions, but it can be implemented effectively only if proportionality is applied throughout the process. Ensuring the Procurement Bill is proportionate is also key to achieving two of the Government’s key aims in this legislation: to improve value for money and to open up the market to smaller providers, including charities. Proportionality is crucial to the effective procurement of person-centred public services through ensuring that resources are not wasted on overly complex processes when they are not necessary and that the most appropriate provider to run the service can be procured rather than being excluded because of their size or where this is disproportionate to the scale or nature of the contract. Proportionality is referenced in the legislation, but only in specific parts, yet we believe it is relevant right across the entire process.

NCVO, which represents over 17,000 voluntary organisations, charities, community groups and enterprises across England, and the Lloyds Bank Foundation have drawn attention to the fact that this Bill will impact on the services and support that people access. We therefore believe that it is important to ensure that it is appropriate for the commissioning of procurement of people-centred services that are delivered by a range of service providers that also include charities. Charities are often well placed to deliver these services because they are embedded in local communities. They are trusted by local people and often able to reach those whom other services fail to reach.

Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lord Moylan

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

After “except homo sapiens”.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Okay. As I was saying, they are probing amendments that are basically asking for animals to come in that are already covered, as they are vertebrates. I am just a bit confused about that. If we look back to the European Council directive in 1998 which preceded the Lisbon treaty, fish and birds are included all the way back to then. I will be interested in what the Minister has to say and why the probing amendments are felt to be necessary.

Looking at Clause 5(2), we have had some debate about the fact that the definition could be widened in future to include invertebrates if evidence of sentience among invertebrates comes forward. We have put forward this amendment because we believe that evidence of sentience among two groups of invertebrates, cephalopods —for example, octopuses—and decapod crustaceans, is already established and has been for a number of years.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, spoke about the importance of scientific evidence in the debate on an earlier group, so I am sure he will be interested in the fact that back in December 2005, the Panel on Animal Health and Welfare of the European Food Safety Authority published a report that examined the scientific evidence about the sentience and capacity of certain invertebrate species to experience pain and distress. It concluded that decapod crustaceans and cephalopods can experience pain and distress, and that the largest decapod crustaceans are complex in behaviour and have a pain system and considerable learning ability.

As regards cephalopods, the scientific panel concluded that they have a nervous system and a relatively complex brain similar to many vertebrates and sufficient in structure and function for them to experience pain. Notably, they can experience and learn to avoid pain and distress, such as avoiding electric shocks. In addition, they have significant cognitive ability, including good learning ability and memory retention, elaborate communication systems and individual temperaments. More recently, a number of scientific papers strongly point to the conclusion that both cephalopods and decapod crustaceans are capable of experiencing pain and suffering.

Even more recently—the noble Lord, Lord Trees, referred to this—evidence was given to the Select Committee in July, this month, by Dr Jonathan Birch from the LSE, who is, of course, the author of the report that Defra is producing. He provided written evidence, along with Professor Nicola Clayton and Dr Alexandra Schnell from the University of Cambridge, and Dr Heather Browning and Dr Andrew Crump from the LSE. These are serious academics, who are the kind of people we should listen to when we consider scientific evidence in making decisions. If noble Lords will bear with me, I just want to pull up a couple of their points on this Bill. They say:

“In our opinion, the evidence vindicates the 2012 extension of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 to cover all cephalopod molluscs. We now have a very strange situation in the UK: all cephalopod molluscs are protected in science but they are not protected by robust animal welfare laws outside scientific settings.”


Coming to Amendment 57 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan—and perhaps to answer his considerations about this—they also say that:

“Regarding decapod crustaceans: although it would be possible for animal welfare law to protect some infraorders while excluding others, this has the potential to generate significant confusion. A better approach would be to protect all decapod crustaceans in very general legislation such as the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill”.


Having made that point, I would like to look at the work of the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission. In February this year, it issued a definition of sentience to cover both groups we have been discussing in light of the accumulating evidence, and that preceded the evidence I have just read out to noble Lords. Our amendment acknowledges this growing amount of evidence and seeks to embed it within the Bill by extending the definition of “animal” to cover cephalopods and decapod crustaceans. We know that they are already protected in some other countries—Australia, Switzerland, Norway and New Zealand—and in some states in the United States and Australia. The recognition of cephalopod and decapod crustacean sentience has already been acknowledged within the scientific community, so in our mind there is no good reason to delay acknowledgement of it within the Bill.

The independent review has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Trees, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes. There is huge expectation that this report will be published soon, and it has a significant role to play in informing the Bill we have been debating in this Committee. It would be extremely useful if the Minister could give us an update on its progress because to have it before us before Report is very important.

Before I finish, I want to speak very briefly to a couple of the other amendments. First, on Amendment 50 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, I just feel a bit disappointed that it has been tabled to remove wild animals from the scope of the Bill. I do not think there is a case for their removal. I heard the noble Lords’ concerns around responsibility, and I would be very keen to hear some clarity from the Minister on this area. I really think that if we accept that animals are sentient by virtue of their biology, sentience applies whatever the condition an animal is in, whether it is wild, farmed or kept as a companion. Human activity—what we do—impinges on wild, farm and companion animals alike. So, consideration of how our activity impacts on the welfare of sentience should cover all animals that would come under the scope of the Bill at the moment.

Amendment 48, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and other noble Lords, would limit the Bill’s coverage to mammals, as we heard in the introduction. I would just like to make this point: when we consider whether an animal is sentient, we should not be affected by how like it is to us. That is not the point of sentience. As noble Lords, we need to consider this fact very carefully, and that is borne out again by the scientific evidence. On that basis, being an invertebrate should not automatically preclude sentience, so the limitations proposed by the amendment would then become an entirely arbitrary limitation given the overwhelming evidence I have just expressed concerning the fact that sentience exists across vertebrates.

I am aware that there has been quite a bit of press interest in our amendment. I know we are not allowed to use props, but I have a newspaper here, the Times, whose editorial on 8 July said, “Considering the Lobster” —it is almost getting a bit Lewis Carroll, is it not? The subheading was:

“Ministers are right to ban the practice of boiling shellfish alive.”


In light of this, I urge the Minister to take action and accept our amendment.