Public Procurement

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I have answered the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone about the procurement process and I am not going to go into specifics about a particular procurement decision because I have not seen the detail and I was not involved in making that decision. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about such procurement contracts being significant and complex and there is a need to get the specification right in the first place. There has been a considerable amount of controversy about that particular case.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Will the Minister generously give way?

[Mr Harper]

I will probably regret it.

[Mr Spellar]

First, as a previous Transport Minister may I tell the hon. Gentleman that the Germans always buy German trains and the French always buy French trains? They make it very clear how they do that. Secondly, going back to police cars, I do not know what he does on a Saturday night but if he watches any of the police series from various European countries, he will notice that if they are from any country that produces cars they always drive their own vehicles. I do not want to get into specifics, but this is about the mindset of our civil service. The French, German, Spanish and Italian civil services back their industry. What is wrong with the culture of our civil service that it is always trying to do British industry down?

[Mr Harper]

That is a very good point and I will leave it hanging. I have not seen any evidence that our civil servants are always trying to do our industry down. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman will respond by giving me evidence of that on another occasion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I begin my brief remarks by joining the Minister in thanking members of the European Scrutiny Committee for their thorough work in producing the draft reasoned opinion. As the Minister said, the report concentrates on two key areas: the Commission’s apparent failure to adhere to proper processes and the question of infringement of the principles of subsidiarity. On both those issues, Labour Members are in general agreement with the European Scrutiny Committee’s conclusions.

First, we share the concern that the draft directives in question fail to comply with the Commission’s procedural obligations. In an apparent breach of article 2 of protocol No. 2, the Commission neither consulted member states properly on the possibility of setting up a single national oversight body to monitor procurement nor carried out the required “detailed statement” assessing the implications.

Secondly, on the substance of the directives, we are particularly concerned by the proposal that would require the UK to allow the introduction of a single oversight body with the power to “seize” jurisdiction from British courts. As the Committee makes clear, that proposal would force the UK to combine non-judicial and judicial responsibilities within the same organisation. Crucially, the proposal could be seen as breaching the principle of subsidiarity due to it requiring an administrative body to carry out functions that would normally be dealt with by UK courts. As the Committee states,

“this aspect of the proposal amounts to an unwarranted interference in the domestic legal order of the UK, in which administrative and judicial powers have traditionally been exercised separately.”

In addition, the National Assembly for Wales has said that the proposal to introduce a single oversight body in the UK fails also to have proper regard to the principle of devolution.

The Commission’s draft proposals are simply not the right approach. Indeed, it is our view that they amount to little less than another power grab by the European Commission. As the European Scrutiny Committee has outlined, they will add another layer of bureaucracy.

There is a growing public perception in the UK—one that has been echoed by Members on both sides of the House during the debate—that when it comes to EU procurement rules, the current system does not function fairly. The Commission has to face up to that perception. How the rules are interpreted has been allowed to vary too much from country to country over the years. Too often, it seems like one rule for us and another for other member states. Too often, weaker Ministers, in all Governments, have been rolled over by officials, often at the Treasury, who, at best, have an ambivalent attitude to British industry. They have used EU procurement rules as a basis to make recommendations to Ministers that simply do not do the right thing by the United Kingdom.

[Mr Spellar]

I have always thought that there was precious little to commend Chairman Mao’s misrule in China, but his policy of sending recalcitrant officials back to the countryside for re-education seems to have something to commend it. Would not undertaking a shift in respect of Britain’s manufacturing be salutary for many of our civil servants, who are letting Britain down?

[Michael Dugher]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention: he is not noted for being on the left of any party, so it is refreshing—surprising—that he refers to Chairman Mao, but he is of course right.

I referred to weaker Ministers, but I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend: whether he was a Defence Minister or a Transport Minister, he was assiduous in standing up for British industry and challenging his officials—indeed, challenging other Ministers, whether in this Government or the previous Government—on behalf of the UK taxpayer and British industry.

The strictest and most inflexible approach to EU procurement rules seems to be almost an article of faith for some parts of the system here at home. Officials and Ministers might believe that they are acting like good Europeans, but the truth is that they do not act like other Europeans. Little wonder that the British public remain so sceptical of many of the European institutions.