Procurement Bill [HL]

Lord Fox Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 25th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for the explanation behind the Motion. She kindly referred to the amendments I tabled on Report following our debate in Committee, which focused on the appalling practice of forced organ harvesting, principally in China, which involves the removal of organs from living prisoners of conscience for the purpose of transplantation, killing the victim in the process. It is state sanctioned, widespread throughout China and has become a multi-billion-pound commercial operation.

We know that the victims are mainly Falun Gong practitioners, but more recently, evidence has indicated that Uighur Muslims are also being targeted on a massive scale. Further to that, there are several pieces of evidence suggesting that Tibetans and house Christians are as likely to be the victims of forced organ harvesting. As the noble Baroness said, my amendment was passed by your Lordships’ House on Report and went to the Commons, where it was rejected. We had another go in September and again, I am afraid, the Commons has reinserted the original provisions in the Bill.

I regret that this has happened for three reasons, the first being the scale of the atrocities being carried out in China and specifically in Xinjiang province. Secondly, Ministers are wrong to dismiss the need for the amendment. Above all else, its passage would have been a powerful signal in the UK and globally of our abhorrence of these awful practices. Thirdly, you cannot consider my amendment on forced organ harvesting without setting it in the context of the Government’s approach to China more generally. The Prime Minister has talked quite tough in recent weeks on the Government’s approach to China. However, the overall approach, to put it at its kindest, is clouded in inconsistency, ambiguity and sometimes downright confusion. That has been reflected in any number of Select Committee reports over the last year or two.

However, I recognise that this has gone as far as I could expect it to go. I am grateful to all those who supported me, particularly my Front Bench, the Lib Dems and many noble Lords around the House. I particularly pay tribute to Lord Bernie Ribeiro, who retired from the House on Monday. He has been a tower of support to me on this very worrying issue over many years. I wish him all the best in his retirement.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, we should all be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for bringing this issue back on a number of occasions. We share the great disappointment that the Government have not seen fit to use their majority to include this in the Bill. As the Minister herself said: at this point there is no such practice going on, so there is no jeopardy, but it puts down a marker and it makes a very important point about ethical procurement and this particularly horrifying issue. I hope the comments that Ministers have made in this place, and in the other place, are used to emphasise the need for ethical process during procurement; this is perhaps the starkest example, but there are many others. It is with regret that it leaves your Lordships’ House without the noble Lord’s amendment, which we supported.

I thank the Minister for her comment on sensitive sites and Hikvision. It is somewhat intriguing because I suspect that the reason this has come up is because Hikvision is circulating material to its potential clients—and I imagine these are the non-sensitive clients—which seeks to use the Government’s language as an implicit endorsement of its continued operation in this country. I suspect that is why the Minister has stood up and made that comment. I hope that the Government can explain to Hikvision that this is an inappropriate use of their language, to try to sell its product in the face of a very particular problem, which has been highlighted, and one that is also a problem in non-sensitive sites across the country. I am interested to understand—either offline or online from the Minister—how they are taking this up with Hikvision.

This Bill has been on a journey since it started in your Lordships’ House. The next Bill is the exception, but rarely has a Bill received so many amendments. In the main, we have substantially improved the quality of this Bill through co-operation; through the hard work of the Minister, the Minister’s team and, of course, your Lordships. The normal character of these things is that we leave matters in a jovial and hearty way, but I am afraid I am not going to because I will return to an issue.

This is not in reference to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, but the fact is this Procurement Bill was constructed to guide procurement across the whole country. It is supposed to be the way in which all procurement proceeds, with one exception: the largest single area of procurement in the country, the National Health Service. That would be allowable if there was a gold standard procurement process in place in the NHS. Quite clearly there is not. The Health and Care Act 2022 has not set out a gold standard procurement process, and there have been no processes that we can see which deliver that.

Since the last time we discussed this Bill—since the last time the Minister was standing at the Dispatch Box telling us that we do not need proper procurement processes for the National Health Service—there has been further evidence of huge abuses of procurement in the NHS. We do need this, and in the absence of an actual system that sits in the NHS, this system should apply. By not applying it the Government will preside over the waste of hundreds of millions of pounds that could have been spent on necessary services, due to very poor procurement practice. In that vein we are extremely disappointed that the Government have not seen fit to take the advice of your Lordships and include the NHS in this Bill.

We look forward to seeing how this Bill is applied across the country and, I hope, to seeing some benefit from its practices.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Fox (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that comment, but that was not my point. It was actually that the language that the Government have used about non-sensitive sites is being used by Hikvision as a marketing tool to placate potential customers and say that it is okay. If the Minister has not seen that wording, I expect that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, will provide it; otherwise, I would be happy to. The Government need to reflect to Hikvision that they are not endorsing its technology for non-sensitive sites, which is what the company seeks to communicate.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his clarification. That is why I chose to reiterate what I have said. I will talk to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, tomorrow, but I reiterate that we are keeping an eye on this. The reports on the withdrawal of the surveillance equipment will be important. Public bodies outside government and some private bodies have already decided to withdraw these cameras, so I think the message is clear.

I thanked noble Lords across the House for their valuable contributions to the scrutiny of the Bill when it left for the other place on 13 December. I reiterate everything I said then. I add my thanks to our Whip, my noble friend Lord Mott, and my noble friends Lady Noakes, Lord Moylan, Lord Lansley and Lord Maude, who I did not mention last time. I much look forward to Royal Assent and the legacy that I believe will stem from the collective efforts of both Houses, which are all represented here this evening.