Public Procurement: Prioritising British Suppliers Debate
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Lord Pack
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Public Procurement: Prioritising British Suppliers
Lord Pack Excerpts(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I will look into the noble Baroness’s second point and commit to write to her. The Government are open to considering all lawful means of achieving our ambition that half of all food purchased across the public sector should be locally produced or certified to higher environmental standards. Our commitment to farmers and growers in this respect remains steadfast.
Lord Pack (LD)
My Lords, a crucial element of getting procurement right is transparency, so that British suppliers know what they can bid for and we can all judge how the public sector is doing in awarding contracts. But the latest research by procurement specialist Chris Smith shows that, since the transparency requirements in the Procurement Act came into force, three in 10 public contracts have not been published, despite the legal requirements to do so. When can we expect the public sector to start fully complying with that requirement of the law?