Procurement Bill [HL]

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 30th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly on Amendment 97, which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, has just introduced, concerning the procurement review unit. I am grateful to the Minister for organising a very helpful meeting recently outlining the Government’s thinking on the role of the PRU. This is not envisaged as a statutory body, so does not currently feature in the Bill, but it will have some important functions relating to SME engagement in public procurement, such as fostering much-needed culture change in the construction sector and promoting SME access through means such as training, transparency and, above all, better payment practices for public contracts.

These include making 30-day payment terms apply throughout the public sector supply chain, with the 30-day period measured from when an invoice is first received rather than when it is deemed valid. Contracting authorities will be required to publish their payment performance every six months. The payment performance review scheme, PPRS, run by the Cabinet Office, which has been underresourced in the past, will be given extra capacity, staffing and weight. The current system, based on reporting the volume of invoices paid within 30 days, can allow late payment of large sums to be drowned out by a high volume of lower-value instant payments. To give a truer picture, I hope the Minister might consider requiring the value of payments made within 30 days to be reported, as well as the volume.

The PRU will also carry out proactive spot checks to assess compliance with payment terms throughout the supply chain. The Minister might explore the possibility of using technology to track payment times, which might ultimately lead to more real-time transparency of payment performance. I understand that many construction firms already use technology to produce their payment reports.

These are all very welcome aspects of the Government’s plans for the procurement review unit. I hope the Minister will put them formally on record in her response, thereby averting, or at least reducing, the need for Amendment 97 to include the PRU in the Bill.

I end by congratulating the Minister on her piece in the Times on Monday confirming her commitment to making it easier for small firms to compete for and win public sector contracts. I hope the Times readership will actively support us in holding her and the Government to that commitment.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I can be brief. I thoroughly support everything that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said to us in moving his amendment. I do not need to repeat arguments that I placed before your Lordships earlier this week on Monday, in December last year, and then again in January and March this year, and even in the Question that we had just before our proceedings on PPE, which continues to be stored in the People’s Republic of China at a cost to us of some £770,000 every day.

I am extremely grateful that the Minister responded so quickly after our debate on Monday with a letter that I received this morning. For the purposes of the record, I will read out one paragraph. She wrote:

“You made a number of points about PPE contracts which have been found to have underperformed. I also understand you have asked written questions … on these matters. I appreciate your desire for more information on this and I will be writing to the Secretary of State highlighting both your views and those expressed by others in the House.”


That is a very welcome response and I am grateful to the noble Baroness for going to that trouble.

I have sent a copy of our Hansard from Monday to my noble and learned friend Lady Hallett, who is chairing the public inquiry to which the Minister referred during our debate on Monday. The Minister said that lessons would be learned, and that the Covid inquiry would

“cover procurement and the distribution of key equipment and supplies, including PPE”.—[Official Report, 28/11/22; col. 1593.]

I am grateful to her for that.

I have only one other point. On Monday, I raised the issue of repayments. That is not something that can wait for the several years it might take the public inquiry to make its recommendations. I refer the Minister to my two questions about defaulting PPE suppliers and the actions that will be taken through the faulty contract PPE recovery unit. I also asked about individual settlements, which, as she said, are protected by commercial secrecy. I asked

“how will Parliament and the public be notified about money returned to public funds by defaulting PPE suppliers through the actions of the faulty contract PPE recovery unit?”—[Official Report, 28/11/22; col. 1581.]

How will that work? Can the Minister illuminate us a little further? If she cannot, would she be prepared to put pen to paper in a follow-up letter to me as a result of today’s debate? I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, for giving us the opportunity to explore this issue further.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, who raised such important points about payment terms for small and medium-sized enterprises. That is a long- term issue that has not been addressed. There is a real opportunity here, as the noble Lord outlined.

I will speak briefly to Amendment 72, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, who so comprehensively introduced it, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I confess that I attached my name to it at the absolute last minute because I expected a rush of Members from around your Lordships’ House doing so. I thought it was important to demonstrate that there was a breadth of support.

I should perhaps warn the Minister that that support appeared to come from the Government Front Bench earlier, when the noble Lord, Lord Markham, responding to the PPE Urgent Question repeat from the other place, said that the earlier procurement

“should not have been on the basis of referrals”.

It would appear that this amendment delivers exactly what the noble Lord said should happen in future. That is a very interesting reflection of what is happening in your Lordships’ House.

Briefly, we know that the Government would like to treat all this as ancient history, but I and, I am sure, other Members of your Lordships’ House have seen that for members of the public this is still a source of very deep anger and concern. This morning I was on Radio 5 Live’s politicians’ panel and a caller raised this issue, albeit in the context of Matt Hancock’s appearance on “I’m a Celebrity”.

There were a couple of powerful letters in the Guardian this week. I do not know either of the correspondents. Dr Tristram Wyatt noted that in 1919, after the First World War, the President of the Board of Trade introduced a profiteering Bill to ensure that profiteering by suppliers would never happen again. In the same paper Dr Jeremy Oliver questioned why all these PPE contracts were not let on a full cost plus margin basis. This is of great concern to the public. I am hearing from all quarters again and again that people are simply saying, “Never again.” What happened in the Covid-19 pandemic with the VIP channel must not be allowed to happen again. This clear, simple amendment delivers just that.

I will also briefly express concern about government Amendment 116. We had an extensive discussion about this in Committee, which I will not revisit, but this appears to be a significant weakening of the protection of public concern about potential conflicts of interest. I look forward to the Minister’s explanation of that.

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Last year, the House agreed an amendment to the Medicines and Medical Devices Bill to include consent provisions for imported human tissue for use in medicines. Earlier this year, we amended the Health and Care Bill to prohibit the commercialism of organ tourism. They may be small steps, but internationally they were regarded as a visible sign of this country’s concern and as significant. I hope that tonight the House will go one step further. A discretionary power is a modest ask of the Minister. I really hope that we can take one small step towards ending these abhorrent practices. I beg to move.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, as in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, has made a very eloquent, powerful and compelling case for supporting this modest Amendment 91. I am happy to be a signatory to this amendment again.

In Committee, the noble Lord and I, with the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, asked the Government about a hospital being built in China in connection with a British company. I thank the Minister for the parliamentary reply about that hospital, which she gave me on 29 November. But I am concerned to learn that the company involved, International Hospitals Group, has a continuing hospital partnership in the People’s Republic of China.

I draw the House’s attention to the words of the British Medical Association, which describes China as a country where there is

“evidence of medical involvement in the Chinese state’s genocide against Uyghur people”,

and the statement of the China Tribunal, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, which describes the “significant scale” of enforced organ harvesting throughout China, all of which should surely encourage us to think very seriously about what more we can do, as we did on the Health and Care Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said. All of us who heard the arguments then went into the Lobbies to support him, and I hope that if it becomes necessary—which I hope it will not—we will do the same tonight.

I am also a signatory to Amendment 141, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud. This is an argument, again, that we have had in previous legislation—again in the health Bill—about the use of slave labour in Xinjiang. I draw attention to my being vice-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Uyghurs. It is an issue that I have raised again and again, and mentioned here again during debates on this Bill on Monday last. I will not try to curtain-raise for the noble Baroness—she is more than capable of doing that for herself.

My purpose, therefore, in rising, is to specifically draw attention to and speak to the cross-party Amendment 94, which is in my name and, not for the first time, in the name of my noble friend Lord Blencathra —to use a phrase the Minister used earlier on. I do so because the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, is my noble friend in so many respects, and we have joined common forces. Old Chief Whips should stand together on such matters, and I am always pleased to be in the same Lobby as the noble Lord. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, who has been so formidable, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, who again has been formidable on these issues throughout, are also signatories to this amendment.

The amendment would require the Government to set out a timetable. In a way, we have already been given half a cake, and I want again to be grateful to the noble Baroness. She was able to say to me that she accepts the substance of our case, but what she has not been able to accept—I hope we will convince her to do so this evening—is that there should be a timetable determining when we will prevent further surveillance cameras entering the United Kingdom and being placed often in very sensitive positions, as I will describe. This amendment would remove them from the Government’s procurement supply chain where there is established evidence that the supplier has been involved in modern slavery, genocide or crimes against humanity.

It is particularly topical, as we read reports today of the use of surveillance technology in arresting, imprisoning and re-educating protesters caught up in the wave of unrest in China. There are reports in British and American newspapers today about how surveillance technology—some of the very things we are debating in this amendment—has been used to arrest young people, who then have the whole of their personal histories seen through the devices that they own. Some of their friends have been arrested as a result of access to that information and been arraigned in police stations.

As a result of the hangover from the Government’s so-called “golden era” of relations with the PRC, which the Prime Minister said in his Mansion House speech on Monday was over, we have allowed our surveillance and technology supply chain to be dominated by Chinese surveillance companies with credible links to the genocide taking place in the Uighur region. I am not using that word in a rhetorical way. It was a word used by the former Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, Liz Truss; it was her word that “genocide” was under way in Xinjiang. It is a word that Secretary of State Blinken has used in describing events there, and many others have, too.

Both Hikvision and Dahua Technology, two of the companies in question, have been blacklisted in the USA for their links to the internment camps in Xinjiang and their role working hand-in-glove with the CCP to construct the largest authoritarian surveillance state, which has surpassed even George Orwell’s wildest dreams. There is little distinction between these Chinese technology companies and the state that they serve. They not only work on behalf of the PRC but receive generous state subsidies to do so, which allows them to undercut their rivals and dominate the domestic UK market.

It is therefore little surprise that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has attacked any notion of the United Kingdom Government banning the use of Hikvision and Dahua cameras as “unreasonable suppression” of Chinese companies. I appreciate the engagement from Ministers on this topic, from the noble Baroness but also the noble Lord, Lord True, who met with me privately on this matter on a couple of occasions. During one of those meetings, we were told that there are now 1 million—I repeat, 1 million—Hikvision cameras in the United Kingdom alone.

The announcement last week, then, by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster that the Government are following the example of the Department of Health and Social Care in banning Hikvision cameras from sensitive areas and removing existing cameras from the network, which mirrors the action from the US that I have just referred to, and has just finalised a permanent ban on the sale and import of Hikvision and Dahua Technology cameras, is a welcome one. This is an issue which the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and I have raised on the Floor of the House in regret Motions, in months gone by and in previous debates.

Now that the Government have finally recognised the security and human rights concerns of having Hikvision and Dahua cameras in government departments, the question arises: will they commit to a plan for their removal from the public sector supply chain in its entirety? That is what the amendment is about. As the Government will note, successive freedom of information requests from IPVM, Big Brother Watch and Free Tibet, and Parliamentary Questions, have revealed that Hikvision and Dahua are deeply entrenched in our public sector supply chain. Local councils, NHS trusts, schools, prisons, jobcentres and our railway network all have Hikvision and Dahua cameras in their supply chain and their physical infrastructure.

Do we really want the prying eyes of an authoritarian state that has been accused of genocide, and which, as the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, said just last month, is the

“biggest state based threat to our economic security”,

in our schools, hospitals, and local council buildings? Similarly, how can the Government justify public contracts and taxpayers’ money going into companies where there are credible links of complicity in genocide and the internment camps in Xinjiang? This requires more than “robust pragmatism”, whatever that may mean.

The Government urgently need to come forward with a strategy to remove Hikvision and Dahua Technology cameras from the whole of the procurement supply chain. In the words of the Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner, Fraser Sampson, whom I met last month, these cameras are built on “digital asbestos”. We need a serious government-led plan for their removal. That might take several years. It is the same issue that we had to face with Huawei. We should also develop technology to mitigate the risks these cameras pose in the meantime. We can do that by looking at issues such as connectivity through software, which Canadians are developing at the present time, which might not require the physical removal of all cameras.

Such a plan could emulate a similar timetable that Ministers set out in the then Telecoms (Security) Bill—to which I moved amendments—for the removal of Huawei from the UK’s 5G network. This would include setting a hard date to phase out and remove Hikvision and Dahua technology and hardware from the procurement supply chain; looking at provision and support that can be offered to cash-strapped local authorities to help with the removal; and considering following the USA in banning the sale and import of these cameras in the United Kingdom.

I welcome the leadership that Ministers have shown recently in banning the use of Hikvision and Dahua cameras in government departments, but I urge them to consider applying that same leadership to the rest of the procurement supply chain. The Government are no longer saying that they are unaware of the security and ethical concerns of using these cameras and they cannot wish away the existence of these cameras in the wider procurement supply chain. We need an urgent timetable and a plan to remove Hikvision and Dahua from the UK supply chain in its entirety. I hope the Minister will further consider accepting the entirety of this amendment so that such a timetable and plan will be put in place.

[Baroness Stroud (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 141, which is in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Coaker, and of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, demonstrating cross-party support for it. I add my support to the other amendments in this group.

I also underline my gratitude to the Government and my noble friend the Minister for seriously engaging with the amendment over the summer. I know that we share a desire to mitigate the two key risk areas in public procurement that the amendment covers: first, the possible UK dependency on authoritarian states; and, secondly, the risk of modern slavery in government supply chains. I covered these areas in Committee, so I will keep my comments brief and seek to address any concerns that my noble friend might have raised.

To recap, proposed new subsection (1) would place a burden on the Secretary of State to create regulations that reduce public bodies’ dependency on authoritarian states. As we know, there is no agreed definition of what constitutes an “authoritarian state” in UK law or regulation. Therefore, proposed new subsection (2) would adopt the categorisation contained in the integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy, allowing the legislation to adapt to contemporary geopolitical developments in line with the latest iteration of the review. The countries the amendment would currently apply to as “threats” are Iran, Russia and North Korea, and, as a “systemic competitor”, China. As we have heard, this perspective on China was reiterated by the Prime Minister only this week.

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I turn now to Amendment 95 on product labelling; there has not been much discussion of it.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, if it is helpful to the noble Baroness, I say that, because of the time and because we did have a preliminary debate about this in Committee, it would not be my intention to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 95. I am quite happy for her to write to me with any remarks that she might have liked to have made.

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[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

Before the noble Baroness leaves that point, it is important to put on the record that we currently have a trade deficit with the People’s Republic of China of £40 billion. Dependency, resilience, and the destruction of our own manufacturing base because we are outcompeted through the use of slave labour and goods that are priced much more cheaply than people on a living wage can produce in the United Kingdom—these are issues that the Government need to take rather more seriously than she has just done.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I do take these issues seriously and I commented on diversification, which I have personally been involved in. It is because there is a large amount of trade with China that this cannot be changed overnight—and there might not be a case to do so in non-strategic areas. Inflation is very important and the opening up of Asia has historically been helpful in this country. The Prime Minister said in his speech that we must be realistic and clear about China, but that obviously does not mean we should abandon our values.

It goes without saying that practices such as slavery and human trafficking have no place in government supply chains. We have shown our determination to address modern slavery in many ways, including in the Bill. I draw my noble friend’s attention to the fact that under Clause 27, contracting authorities must ask suppliers to provide details of their intended supply chain for the contract. Authorities can consider whether a subcontractor is subject to a ground for exclusion such as modern slavery. If they conclude that this is the case and that it has failed to self-clean, the lead supplier itself is liable to be excluded from the procurement if it does not take the opportunity to remove the subcontractor from its supply chain. However, we must recognise the complexity of the issue.

My noble friend’s amendment says that

“The Secretary of State must … make provision”


in procurements and contracts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking, and that this is to be done by secondary legislation, but I fear that the amendment fails to reflect the sheer complexity of the matter. Regulations cannot specify precisely which award criteria might be appropriate to address the risk of slavery and human trafficking in every different procurement: this depends on the nature of the particular contract being tendered, including what is being purchased and the likely nature and location of supply chains. The right vehicle to help contracting authorities address slavery and human trafficking risks is in guidance, and there is already comprehensive guidance setting out the action that departments must take. This is 46 pages long and includes sections on managing risks in new procurements, assessing existing contracts, taking action when victims of modern slavery are identified, supply chain mapping, useful tools, training and questions to ask.

My noble friend will know that I have committed to put the matters addressed in the guidance on a statutory footing as part of the national procurement policy statement, provided for under Clause 12 of the Bill. This would mean that all contracted authorities would have to have regard to that guidance, which I think the noble Baroness can see is a significant step forward.

Finally, I note that the draft provisions in the amendment go significantly beyond the language in the Health and Care Act with which it was my noble friend’s stated intention to bring the Bill into alignment. Amendment 141 also creates a strong expectation that the Minister will make regulations, and that they will cover the matters referred to in the amendment, so it is effectively a must.

I know that people are looking forward to getting to the end of this debate, so I will not go through the problems with proposed new subsection (5)(d) to (f), but I will ask noble Lords to note that this will be burdensome to contracting authorities as well as small businesses. I know that my noble friend does not much care about the latter, but there might be wider concern about the gumming-up of contracting authorities in this matter when we have already made arrangements in the Bill to give modern slavery much more focus, and have added that to the relevant schedules.

We believe that proposed new subsection (5)(f), for example, is disproportionate and contrary to the open principles of our procurement regime, as well as to the interests of efficiency, value for money and common sense. Moreover, countries and regions that pose risks change over time, and that is another reason to use guidance, and not this Bill, on this matter.

Finally, I say to my noble friend Lord Blencathra that we should remember that the new regime will give broader exclusion powers to contracting authorities—he referenced Huawei—which will have primary responsibility for applying the exclusions regime.

In closing, I respectfully ask the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, to withdraw his amendment, but I emphasise the progress that this Bill has made, and I therefore find some of the comments on this group a little disappointing.

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Moved by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

94: After Clause 61, insert the following new Clause—
“Timeline for removal of suppliers
(1) Within 6 months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must publish a timeline for the removal of physical technology or surveillance equipment from the Government’s procurement supply chain where the Secretary of State is satisfied there is established evidence that a provider has been involved in—(a) modern slavery,(b) genocide, or(c) crimes against humanity.(2) The Secretary of State must lay the timeline before Parliament.”

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to test the opinion of the House.

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Members of both Houses all support the greatest possible transparency and recognise that we need to change the culture in all three armed services from one that says, “We have to have equipment that is at least as complex and of at least as high a standard as that of the US” to one that says, “For the many things we need, more things that are slightly less complex and a hell of a lot cheaper would probably be better”. So I ask for more transparency—that is where the audit comes from. We are actively concerned about supporting our Armed Forces, but we recognise that the implications of what we have seen between Ukraine and Russia give rise to large questions about the future balance of defence procurement that we have to address.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, is right to remind us not just of events in Victorian Britain but of what is happening at the moment and the impact that events in Ukraine and elsewhere will have on our procurement programmes.

I serve on your Lordships’ International Relations and Defence Committee. As the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie—it is wonderful to see her in her place—knows, throughout the whole of this year we have been conducting an inquiry into procurement and defence priorities, which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, touched on. We began it before the second invasion of Ukraine in February. From my discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, who pressed this issue in Committee, I know how important this is, for all the reasons he described. He has a great sense of patriotism and cares for our Armed Forces, and I strongly associate myself with him and the desire for a probing amendment to test some of these questions.

One reason why I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, will be able to reply in terms to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, on Ajax especially, is that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, who is chair of our Select Committee, was here during his speech—she was unable to stay—and said that I can tell the House that she strongly agrees with the questions he put. She hopes that the noble Baroness will be able to answer them because they will be part of the terms of our committee’s report, which we have to complete before the House rises for the Christmas Recess at the end of December. So it is important that, if the noble Baroness is not able to answer those probing questions this evening, we are given answers in due course.

One of the witnesses to the Select Committee inquiry was Professor John Louth, who was the director of defence, industries and society research at RUSI from 2011 to 2019. When we asked him directly about the way in which we should go about defence procurement, I asked him specifically about the Bill and whether it would be welcome. He said:

“I have tried to read as much of this as possible … It is hard to identify the end state that the Government are looking for”.


He said that there are

“lines and lines of rhetoric and legalistic reform”,

some of which is incomprehensible even for those of us who are academics.

I asked him specifically about Ajax, which the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has been raising, and he replied that it has been a “disaster”. As we have heard, it was intended to be a state-of-the-art reconnaissance vehicle for the Army, and it has cost a staggering £3.2 billion to date, yet so far not a single deployable vehicle has been delivered—not one. It was of course supposed to enter service in 2017, but it has been subject to what the Commons committee called a “litany of failures”, including noise and vibration problems that injured the soldiers testing the vehicles. Can the Minister tell us whether those safety issues have been resolved, or whether they are ever likely to be?

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, reminded us that the House of Lords Select Committee said the programme had been “flawed from the outset” and also that it was illustrative of a deeper failing, commenting that the Ministry of Defence

“once again made fundamental mistakes in its planning and management of a major defence programme.”

Pulling no punches, the Public Accounts Committee accused the department of failing to deliver vehicles which the Armed Forces need

“to better protect the nation and to meet our NATO commitments”.

In the current situation, with one eye eastwards to Ukraine, that is a very serious statement by a senior committee of Parliament—and this Bill, of course, is a Bill that will go down to the other place. It will go as a pristine Bill from the House of Lords, but the other place will be able to amend it, and I have no doubt that people from the Public Accounts Committee will want the answers that the noble Lord has gently been asking for this evening.

I will end by quoting Meg Hillier, who chaired the committee inquiry. She said:

“Enough is enough—the MoD must fix or fail this programme, before more risk to our national security and more billions of taxpayers’ money is wasted. These repeated failures … are putting strain on older capabilities which are overdue for replacement and are directly threatening the safety of our service people and their ability to protect the nation and meet NATO commitments.”


That is good enough reason alone, surely, for the Minister to give the House a comprehensive reply.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Goldie) (Con)]

My Lords, I first thank noble Lords for their contributions. I understand fully that the proposed amendment is well intended, and I accept it in that spirit. I think it has certain implicit difficulties, which I shall move on to. I would never object to the Opposition Benches holding the Government’s feet to the fire—that is what the Opposition are there to do—but I hope they will be patient with me as I seek to explain why the precise terms of the amendment confront the MoD with difficulty.

The proposed amendment would require the Ministry of Defence to commission and publish a report from the National Audit Office, setting out instances of procurement overspend, withdrawal or scrapping of assets, termination of prepaid services, cancellations or extensions of contracts, or administrative errors with negative financial impacts. The reason the MoD rejects the amendment is not because it is not in sympathy with what I have identified as a well-intended sentiment expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, but quite simply because existing processes already ensure robust scrutiny and accountability of Ministry of Defence procurements.

Before I move on to that more detailed exposition, let me deal with a very specific point the noble Lord raised about the defence equipment plan which was published yesterday. He is more ahead than I am because I have been preparing for this. I have referred it to my officials, and I am told that it is difficult to calculate an accurate figure of inflation at the moment, due to volatility. That is an inadequate response to give the noble Lord from the Dispatch Box, so I offer to write to him. We will do further research in the department, and I shall endeavour to expand on what these particular difficulties are.

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Tabled by

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

141: After Clause 101, insert the following new Clause—
“Supply chain resilience against economic coercion and slavery
(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision for reducing the dependency of public bodies upon goods and services which originate in whole or in part in a country considered by the United Kingdom as either a systemic competitor or a threat.(2) A country is “considered by the United Kingdom as either a systemic competitor or a threat” if it was defined as such in the latest Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy.(3) The regulations under subsection (1) may, in particular, include—(a) provision for an annual review of the dependency of public bodies upon countries which are considered by the United Kingdom as systemic competitors or threats;(b) provision for the setting of acceptable dependency thresholds across all categories of public procurement.(4) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision for eradicating from all public contracts goods or services that are tainted by slavery and human trafficking.(5) The regulations under subsection (4) may, in particular, include—(a) provision in connection with the processes to be followed by public bodies in the procurement of goods or services for the purposes of public contracts; (b) provision as to steps that must be taken by public bodies for assessing and addressing the risk of slavery and human trafficking taking place in relation to people involved in public bodies’ supply chains;(c) provision as to matters for which provision must be made in contracts for goods or services entered into by public bodies;(d) provision as to the standards of disclosure and transparency required for all contractors or prospective contractors, which must, at a minimum, include publication and verification of information about the country of origin of all sourcing inputs in their supply chain;(e) provision for the public disclosure of the names of contractors or prospective contractors whose supply chains are considered tainted by slavery and human trafficking;(f) provision for the publication and dissemination of a risk register detailing areas from which goods cannot be sourced without unreasonable risk of slavery and human trafficking being present in supply chains.(6) In this section—“public body” means a body exercising functions of a public nature;“slavery and human trafficking” has the meaning given by section 54(12) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015;goods or services are “tainted” by slavery and human trafficking if slavery and human trafficking take place in relation to anyone involved in the supply chain for providing those goods or services.”Member’s explanatory statement
The amendment seeks to improve the UK’s supply chain resilience against dependency and human rights abuse by creating a double regulation making power: to enable the Government to develop a plan to address dependency throughout public procurement; and to bring the human rights standards of wider public procurement in line with the procurement standards of the Department of Health and Social Care.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

With the leave of the House, I shall speak for a moment on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, and as one of the four sponsors of the amendment, to say how encouraged we were by the offer made earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for a meeting with the sponsors of the amendment. Given that this Bill is not in ping-pong but will be going to another place for further consideration, it is now the intention of the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, not to move the amendment and to return to this question once we have had the opportunity of meeting the Minister and, in due course, returning to the issues we explored during the debate this evening.

Amendment 141 not moved.