Public Procurement (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his introduction and for the very helpful Explanatory Memorandum to the regulations, which tells us that the EU regulations have ensured that the

“public procurement market is open and competitive and that suppliers are treated equally and fairly.”

It goes on to say that in most respects that will remain substantially unchanged; any changes will be to correct minor deficiencies. Therefore, I should like to follow up on my noble friend Lord Blunkett’s third point and ask the Minister whether he can explain some recent public procurement decisions in light of this.

Why, for example, was a contract for hand sanitiser given to TAG Energy without competitive tender, especially as that company was reported dormant on 25 February and the contract awarded on 1 March? Why were contracts awarded without tender to Public First and to Topham Guerin, the company that ran the social media campaign for the Tories in the 2019 general election? Was there any tendering before Randox, which employs Owen Paterson MP at over £8,000 a month, was given a £133 million contract for Covid testing? Did Serco, for which the Health Minister Edward Argar used to work, have competition before it was awarded contracts for contact tracing and call centres totalling over £150 million? Finally, although I could ask about many more, did the company of the noble Baroness, Lady Mone—PPE Medpro—face competitors for the contract for 25 million gowns? Was it advertised to any other bidders?

These are just a few of many examples where it seems the proper procedures were not followed. I understand the urgency at the moment, but it is no excuse to say that we are in the middle of a pandemic when lucrative contracts have been given to companies with no experience in that area, many of which seem to have only one thing in common: a link with the Tory party. It is small wonder that the media have again said today that there appears to be a new virus around—“crony-virus”. I look forward to the Minister’s answers to my questions with keen anticipation.