Covid-19: One Year Report

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, last week I received a letter from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, asking me to support its White Paper, which is designed to restore trust in corporate governance through increased transparency and directors taking more responsibility for the probity of their business and accuracy of their accounts. After the current and recent business failures leaving the taxpayer to pick up the tab, who could not support this? But I put it to the Minister that seeking more accountability, integrity and probity applies to the Government as well as to business, particularly regarding the legislation that we are debating today, such as that on placing contracts without proper scrutiny.

Recently, the High Court ruled that in relation to this legislation the Government had acted unlawfully on both transparency and clarity by not publishing contracts on time. When details were published, it turned out that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, reminded us, companies given referrals by MPs and Ministers were 10 times more likely to win contracts resulting from this emergency legislation. When challenged, the Government said that these contracts were on the record for everybody to see, but it emerged, again in a recent court order, that 100 contracts are still waiting to be published, one from as far back as March 2020.

Officials have also raised questions about value for money. For instance, contracts worth millions have resulted in unsafe and unusable face masks. The normal practice is to claim clawback payments for faulty goods, but that does not seem to be happening, at great expense to the taxpayer and, I might add, at great personal risk to front-line staff who, in some cases, had to create their own protection equipment out of plastic bags. Indeed, emails revealed in the High Court quoted one civil servant saying that the Government were

“procuring merrily and to hell with the consequences”.

I put it to the Minister that if the Government apply the principles and values of their own White Paper, they should demonstrate transparency by publishing the approximately 100 outstanding contracts. They should claw back the money spent on faulty goods and goods not delivered, and future contracts under this legislation should be awarded using the normal competitive tender procedure with details published within the 30-day limit, as the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, suggested. This would not only save the taxpayer money but give some comfort to our overstretched NHS staff and would be in keeping with the higher corporate governance standards proposed by the Government in their White Paper.

However, I am not optimistic. Why? It is because only last week the Government proposed legislation that would curtail the power of the courts to review ministerial decision-making. This would put some ministerial decisions beyond questioning, a direction of travel completely opposite to the one called for in the Government’s White Paper, making it yet more difficult to deal with the problems connected to the Government’s coronavirus legislation. I hope the Minister’s response will put our minds to rest over this.