Public Services (Social Value) Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Friday 27th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, when your name appears towards the end of a speakers list, it is not unusual to discover that everything you wanted to say has already been said, often more eloquently than you could have done. Therefore, I shall not detain your Lordships' House for long.

This is one of those Bills where you ask yourself why on earth it has not been introduced earlier. Then you have a look and think that there was nothing to stop it being introduced earlier; so why has that not been done? The simple reason is that, until now, this subject was considered as something that was jolly good but which should be tagged on to something else. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, touched on that when he spoke about corporate responsibility in relation to many big firms. Indeed, we have all seen projects of varying quality and heard the associated razzmatazz about corporate responsibility. However, corporate responsibility has not been an essential part of the services we are discussing and the concept has not been open to challenge prior to the introduction of the Bill. I hope that the concept is also applied to non-traditional, first-choice suppliers; when you come out with an expression like that without thinking about it, you wonder whether you have been here too long. Such suppliers could offer models of best practice that may be absorbed by bigger groups.

Whenever you have a good idea and it is purloined by somebody else, you always cry foul, but as long as action is taken that is a good thing. I hope that the Bill, which is a short measure when compared with the huge Bills that we have discussed over the past few months, will help to start a process. Following the enactment of other good small pieces of legislation, battles have commenced in terms of enforcement, monitoring and making sure that people take them seriously. The Bill constitutes a good idea that has been given a few teeth. Whether those teeth are sharp enough, or the jaw that contains them is strong enough, we do not yet know. However, the Bill is a good start. We should see it as part of an ongoing process as opposed to an end in itself. Nevertheless, it is valuable.