Public Procurement (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, we can support this draft instrument, but I am afraid that I have to raise the bigger question that is around. It was touched on by my noble friends Lord Blunkett and Lord Foulkes as well as by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and it is whether this Government can be trusted to adhere to public procurement rules. The Grand Committee hardly needs me to repeat what it read in the papers yesterday and again today; that has been mentioned. However, the record of Ministers bringing in their friends and relatives, whether paid or unpaid, to advise on or carry out government-funded work is making a mockery of our Nolan rules in procurement processes, and any integrity in the use of taxpayers’ money. I note that, in introducing this instrument, the Minister particularly mentioned the importance of value for money. This is partly why we make sure that we have competitive tendering.

We have read of lobbyists and their clients benefiting from vital information from such advisers before either the public or Parliament knows; of investors at a paid-for conference getting a heads-up on vaccine developments; and of £1.5 billion of taxpayers’ money being awarded to companies linked to the Conservative Party during the pandemic—companies with no record as government suppliers before this year. Urgency is not really sufficient excuse; I understand that it may have worked for the first couple of weeks, but not for this long after. In normal times Ministers must advertise contracts for privately provided services, so that any company has a chance of securing the work. A person’s connections are not supposed to help. Today it sometimes seems that unless you have a close connection with a Minister, it is not even worth tendering. My colleagues in the other place have endless stories about their local firms—firms with a track record—not even being considered. Sometimes their phone calls are not even answered.

It is not as if all this playing footsie with friends produces good results. Test and trace is hardly a success and we have had stories about unusable PPE. The noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, has just said that

“the perception is taking root that too many in public life, including some in our political leadership, are choosing to disregard the norms of ethics and propriety that have explicitly governed public life for the last 25 years, and that, when contraventions of ethical standards occur, nothing happens.”

Can the Minister assure your Lordships’ House that whatever the rules agreed in this instrument, or any other, good governance and ethics, not chumocracy, will determine how contracts are awarded?

On the issue itself, I emphasise just two points. One is about the devolved authorities. Have they agreed with this SI and were they involved in its preparation? I know that in Wales, for example, they have been worried about whether they will be able to use procurement to raise standards, along the lines suggested by my noble friend Lord Hain about a fair deal for employees of outsourced companies. There are also the issues raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Bennett, about the use of procurement to promote healthy or local services, including for food. When is the Green Paper likely to appear and is it also being drawn up together with the devolved authorities?

I also have a question to which I ought to know the answer but do not. I apologise as it is a genuine question, and I am not trying to make any point at all. Who oversees this instrument? I know that it is always far too difficult to expect SMEs, which feel that they have been excluded, to take action. What will be the supervising and enforcement authority to ensure that all tendering keeps to this or any other instrument concerning procurement?