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

Lord Hain Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, in October 2019, the Prime Minister agreed the political declaration on the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with the European Union, which committed Britain and the EU each to adopt “common high standards” in state aid, competition, employment law and social legislation. In November 2019, the Prime Minister boasted that Brexit would free him to make fundamental changes to Britain’s public procurement rules. The implication was clear: he planned to relax the current rules on procurement and state aid and introduce some kind of “buy British” policy to echo Donald Trump’s “buy America” policy.

We are told that this week could be when the EU-UK trade talks finally come to a conclusion. We know that Ministers are already discussing a draft Green Paper on procurement and that the Cabinet Office is consulting stakeholders on future procurement rules, including new criteria for awarding contracts. Perhaps the Minister could say what those criteria might include. They ought to include setting stronger employment standards, delivering a fairer deal at work, and doing more to help those hit hardest by technological change.

Achieving record rates of employment is not enough. The last Labour Government did it and, despite a decade of austerity, the coalition Government and the post-2015 Tory Governments have done it too. Until the virus crisis there have been lots of jobs, but too many have been insecure, with nearly a million people struggling to survive on zero-hours contracts and a million in temporary work or doing second jobs. Many more have been vital jobs done by key workers filling essential roles but receiving unfairly poor pay and scant recognition. The Institute for Fiscal Studies reckons that key workers receive significantly lower pay than other workers. Surely the Government must use their procurement power to deliver a fair deal to their own employees, such as health workers, and to staff employed by private sector firms working on public sector contracts, such as care workers, delivery drivers and cleaners.

Many communities have missed out, having been hit hard by technological change and economic disruption, such as those in the south Wales valleys and in former centres of heavy industry in the north of England. Successive Governments have struggled in vain to counter the uneven impact of structural change, which has left millions of industrial casualties in its wake as old industries fade and new ones locate elsewhere. Public procurement has a really big part to play in steering new jobs to places left bereft by globalisation and technological change. Can the Minister confirm that regulations such as these will drive that very objective?