Public Procurement (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) (No. 2) Regulations 2019

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to debate these SIs, but I have one or two questions of clarification. Luckily, the Minister has already answered my question about the Modern Slavery Act.

As I understand it, the first of the two SIs, in practice, relates to third-country public procurement by the UK. I admit to having a concern about the interests of our own UK businesses and small operators that are involved in procurement. I refer to my registered interests, just in case any might be affected, although the impact assessment suggests that the impact of this order is negligible.

My experience is that we in the UK are more punctilious about enforcement of procurement rules based on,

“transparency, non-discrimination, equal treatment and proportionality”,

and the remedies for breach of any of those; I picked up the wording from paragraph 6.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum. Perhaps the Minister would be kind enough to comment on the risk that the changes will put us at a future disadvantage and not be fully reciprocated by the third countries concerned in the procurement process. If there is a risk, how long will it last? The SI lasts for 18 months, but I am not clear whether that is 18 months altogether or 18 months during which contracts might be let. Of course, procurement contracts often go on for many years.

I was sorry to see that there was no public consultation on this SI, but perhaps my noble friend the Minister can let me know if any concerns have been raised since the SI was published. I fully support the second SI on electronic invoicing. The UK has led the charge in Brussels on permitting businesses and citizens, and people around the world, to take advantage of the magic of online. That includes invoicing, contracts and many basic things. Both in business and as a Minister, this is an area that I have strongly supported and I am glad to see that electronic invoicing continues to apply. Our support for online should continue in third-country and EU procurement, although I know that the latter may be more peripherally affected on this occasion.

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)]

My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend can help me. In view of the contingent nature of these SIs, is it the Government’s policy to honour the result of last night’s vote in another place?

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, that is a question I shall leave on the charge sheet for the Minister to deal with in a moment. Indeed, there is a wider political question around these statutory instruments to which the Minister delicately referred, in careful language, which is that there are those Brexiteers who argued for Britain’s departure from the EU on the basis that we would be free of all these rules and restrictions, including those which, in sum and on balance, genuinely benefit British industry but which do not always suit either a particular business or a local authority which wants to give the business to some more local concern. This was one of the things that was so often quoted during the referendum debate as something we would get rid of, whereas most of us knew that these were so much to our advantage that, even if Brexit did happen, we would retain many of them, as we see is happening today.