Local Government (Exclusion of Non-commercial Considerations) (England) Order 2022

Lord Beith Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

From the officials.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Beith) (LD)]

Has the Minister sat down?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

The Minister’s getting up, but the Minister’s getting confused. I am sorry; I meant “the noble Lord, Lord Khan”. I have been confused by people writing the wrong name. I am just reading from the top of the page—my apologies.

Here is the piece of paper. Going on to the next point, I say that we do not know about the impact on employment, and the impact on business is dependent on whether the country or territory of origin of supplies or location of business activities is Russia or Belarus and whether the relevant authority has decided to terminate contracts. Therefore it is not easy to estimate the impact on employment. But, again, this is a permissive power, and local government will ultimately make the decision in the interest of local services and value for money.

I will answer the noble Lord, Lord Khan, about what local authorities should do when these regulations come into effect. The Government will make sure that we provide guidance to local authorities as and when this order comes into force. There has been considerable engagement, and a need has been identified to do this and to bring forward the secondary legislation. These councils have been writing to the Secretary of State since the invasion of Ukraine, setting out the need for the Local Government Act 1988 restrictions in this area to be lifted, to allow local authorities to act. This statutory instrument will allow them to do this, so there has been considerable engagement, as noble Lords can see, and I hope your Lordships will support me in supporting the order.