Public Procurement Processes

Debate between Jon Trickett and Florence Eshalomi

Wednesday 25th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that important point. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) highlighted, key issues were raised in the other place that now seem to have disappeared from the Bill. That is one of those many areas, and I will come on to it later.

We have heard that procurement makes up around a third of public spending. If it is done right, procurement can have such a transformative impact on our whole economy. My hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead highlighted that social value should not just be an empty phrase. Social Enterprise UK found that between 2010 and 2020, the UK may have missed out on £700 billion-worth of economic, social and environmental opportunities. We are missing out on so much. That is a staggering amount of money. It is crucial that we address some of the problems in the Procurement Bill as it passes through the House.

As I mentioned on Second Reading, Labour supports the introduction of the Bill and recognises the genuine steps forward that it takes. That is why we want to work constructively with the Government to produce a Bill that is fit not just for today, but for the next Government and the Government after that. The Minister has heard my concerns about the Bill a number of times—we have sat through urgent questions and Second Reading—and we will be spending the new few weeks in Committee, which I am sure he is looking forward to, but I want to raise some of the problems that we see with it. I hope that he will think carefully before tomorrow’s deadline for tabling amendments and look at how he can make genuine improvements to the Bill. I am sure that he has had the chance to look at the amendment paper and that none of our concerns are novel to him, so I hope that he will be able to provide full and frank answers to the House on the issues that I raise.

First, I have deep concerns about the workings of the excluded, excludable and debarment systems in the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth highlighted the practice of companies winning contracts and then doing down staff wages. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) highlighted the CCTV cameras that councils are sourcing from Hikvision and the fact that we should be worried about some of the companies we are seeking contracts for. Labour is clear that we do not want to see those who act improperly, who abuse their workers or who are a threat to this country being awarded public contracts.

We therefore welcome the purpose of the powers in the Bill, but we can see loopholes in the system, which must be closed while the Bill is before the House. It is concerning that references to excludable contracts seem to give the contracting authorities discretion about whether to disregard a tender. Can the Minister please explain why excludable suppliers are not automatically disregarded in the same way as excluded suppliers?

While I understand that there may be some need for flexibility on discretion grounds, there is no mechanism in the Bill to decide where that flexibility should stand. That is extremely troubling given that grounds as serious as national security can be discretionary—that is outrageous. Can the Minister assure us that companies that are considered national threats will be excluded from contracts under the Bill? Will he ensure that contracting authorities will never be able to bypass this judgment and not disregard such suppliers during the process?

A similar problem exists with the debarment list. In his letter to Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 4 August, the Minister in the other place, Lord True, wrote that

“the debarment list is intended to focus on the most serious cases of supplier misconduct, where suppliers may pose a significant risk to contracting authorities or the public. It is not the case that every supplier which meets a ground for exclusion will be considered for inclusion on the debarment list. Rather, there will be a prioritisation policy which governs how cases are selected for investigation. It is likely that only a small number of cases will be considered each year.”

However, the Bill outlines no such qualification for ascension to the debarment list. As it is currently drafted, the only firm qualifications beyond the Minister’s wishes are mandatory and discretionary grounds for exclusion. Given the merry-go-round of Ministers we have seen over the past year, does the Minister not believe that it is right to put a mechanism in the Bill to provide clarity about the scope of the debarment list?

Will the Minister confirm that the Government’s intention for the debarment list is as Lord True laid out in his letter to Baroness Neville-Rolfe? If only the most serious cases of misconduct go on the debarment list, how can it be fair that those put on the list for discretionary reasons are still treated as excludable suppliers? If the Minister believes that a supplier poses a significant risk to the public, that supplier must be disregarded automatically from the process as an excluded supplier.

I have a further concern about the 30-day payment period down the supply chain. On Second Reading, the Paymaster General said that

“we will be paying the prime contractor within the 30-day period. People in the supply chain will be aware of the contract under which they are supplying to the prime, and we expect that 30-day payment to trickle all the way down”.—[Official Report, 9 January 2023; Vol. 725, c. 347.]

Many small and medium-sized enterprises in all our constituencies rely on prompt payment to keep afloat; they cannot rely on expectations of a trickle-down effect. The Minister may say that it will call into doubt the contract of the prime supplier, but how long will this take?

[Jon Trickett]

My hon. Friend is making a strong speech, although I wish her good luck if she is trying to persuade this ideologically driven Government to change their course. She may recall that three Prime Ministers ago—not so long ago in weeks or months, but some time ago in politics—the then Prime Minister advocated Brexit on two grounds: state aid to industry and procurement. Does my hon. Friend think the Government’s procurement policies are doing anything to level up the country socially, economically or otherwise?

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting that. I think again of the example of Scotland, where procurement issues are being decided at the whim of Ministers. If anything, that is not levelling up; it is levelling down. We need a Procurement Bill that highlights and recognises small and medium-sized businesses, which often do fantastic work, ensure that their staff have good terms and conditions, and recognise trade unions. They should be given a fair chance at bidding for Government contracts paid for by public money, as my hon. Friend highlighted earlier.

Given how long colleagues on both sides of the House have to wait for responses from the Government, what steps will the Minister take to ensure that instances of late payment reported to the Government are dealt with promptly? In many cases, that could be the difference for an SME that stops it going under and having to hand redundancy notices to its staff. Does the Minister agree that putting strong enforcement down the supply chain in the Bill is the best way to guarantee that no supplier goes without the vital funds that it needs?

The Minister has heard many concerns this morning and I hope he will respond to all our pressing questions. Of course, I will be picking up many of these issues again in Committee.