Government Contracts: Bain & Company
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, our understanding is that Bain & Company currently does no work for the US federal Government or US federal government agencies and has done no such work since early 2013, but the UK Government are confident that our key ally, the United States, will undertake the necessary due diligence to investigate such matters.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, it seems to be the settled policy of the Government to cut the size of the Civil Service and then compensate by spending more money on consultancies. Why is this done? Is it because civil servants provide evidence, whereas consultancies tell the Government what they want to hear? Some £60 million has been paid to Bain in the last six years. I understand that £40 million of that was paid for “advice on Brexit opportunities”. Was that value for money?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
Bain is not being paid anything at the moment, and I think that in the last year the figure was £2 million. I share the noble Lord’s view that we have to look carefully when we employ consultants to do work that can sometimes be done well within the Civil Service. At the same time, extra expertise is sometimes needed, especially on subjects as difficult as Brexit.
Public Duty Costs Allowance
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
It is very much my hope that the current Prime Minister serves for a long time and that this problem passes.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, when we have Ministers cracking jokes about how many people have occupied their post in the last six months, we recognise that the rate of ministerial and prime ministerial turnover needs to decrease. When she was Prime Minister, Prime Minister Truss made it very clear that she was in favour of a smaller state, with fewer subsidies to individuals. May we therefore take it as given that she is highly unlikely to claim what would be, in effect, a state subsidy now that she has resigned?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
Whether to waive such payments is entirely a matter for the ex-Prime Minister involved, as the noble Lord knows only too well. But I applaud Prime Minister Truss for some of the points she made about efficiency. These are important issues and we should not decry her for making such points.
House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL]
Lord Wallace of Saltaire ExcerptsFriday 18th November 2022
(2 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL] 2022-23 View all House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL] 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, most of those who have spoken have welcomed the Bill and spoken about the importance of this modest reform to the reputation of the House and, in effect, to restoring public trust in our parliamentary democracy.
Several people have spoken about how they were appointed to this House, so I had better come clean too. I was phoned up by Paddy Ashdown shortly after Mark Bonham Carter, then my party’s foreign policy spokesman, had suddenly died. I was told that the party needed an active specialist on foreign policy in the House. It was made quite clear to me that it wanted me, if appointed, to be a working Peer. That seems an appropriate way to appoint party nominees.
Since I was appointed in 1996, I remember the negotiations around the move towards the transitional House we are now in. Indeed, I was with Paddy Ashdown during some of those negotiations. I remind the Minister of what the White Paper of January 1999 said about the composition of the House, in paragraph 19:
“For the transitional House, the Government will ensure that no one political party commands a majority in the Lords. The Government presently plans to seek only broad parity with the Conservatives.”
The noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, then Leader of the Lords, repeated in this Chamber that
“the Government have always made clear the view that no political party should seek a majority in your Lordships’ House. … We shall … ensure a fair representation for all other parties and for the Cross-Benches. The Government intend that the principles of a broad parity and proportionate creations for the other political parties and the Cross-Benches should be maintained throughout the period of the transitional House.”—[Official Report, 20/1/1999; col. 584]
I quote this at length because, in the last two days, the Minister has twice disagreed with that. Indeed, she said yesterday that the Conservative Party, despite winning successive elections, still has only 34% of the seats in the House of Lords. I remind the Minister that, if one takes away the 20% of Cross-Benchers, the substantial number of non-affiliated Peers and the Bishops, it is 45% of the political nominees in this House—and that after the current potential extra nominees, it will be over 50% and we will then be in a very different position. Does the Minister intend that what she said should mark a major shift in the Government’s position on the composition of the Lords? If that is the case, will the Leader of the House come to the House and explain why the Government have changed that established position and what they think the implications will be for the composition of the House after the next change of Government?
Having said that, there is a range of other issues that we need to consider. I was struck, in the Accession Oath made by King Charles, by his commitment to constitutional government. We are all aware that the last but one in our series of Prime Ministers broke the constitution and its conventions in a number of ways, on a number of occasions. The Conservative Party used to call itself the constitutional party; it is in danger of becoming the “unconstitutional party”. Rishi Sunak is the second new Prime Minister we have had this year who has not been elected by the people—I point this out to the Minister, who seems to think that we have a semi-presidential system—but one rather hoped that, under Rishi Sunak, we would begin to return to respect for the rules of the constitution.
Many years ago, Lord Hailsham spoke about “elective dictatorship”, meaning Governments who get their way without Parliament getting in the way. As we all know, what Boris Johnson objected to most about the House of Lords was that we changed some of the things that he proposed. The idea of getting a majority of Conservatives in this House is to stop the House of Lords changing what the Government propose. The Minister knows well, from some of the Bills that she has herself been concerned with, that we have been facing some extremely badly drafted Bills, which, after their introduction, are substantially amended by the Government themselves. Clause 1 of the Procurement Bill is about to have its second government amendment since it was introduced. We have a Government who increasingly have been resisting reasoned amendments in this House and resisting the sorts of discussions between Committee and Report that help to improve legislation.
Holding the Executive to account is the function of this amending House. In the 1999 discussions, it was made entirely clear that this transitional House was intended to be a revising House with a different composition from the House of Commons. This Bill spells out those principles in rather more detail. It strengthens the role of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. There are indeed one or two minor amendments that some of us might like to propose, but I hope that the Minister will be willing to give this at least a half-welcome, to demonstrate that, with the arrival of Prime Minister Sunak, we are returning to a rather more constitutional, reasoned form of government, and that we will therefore begin to move to the next stage of the long and slow process of Lords reform.
Peerages: Letters Patent
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the Minister yesterday asserted the principle that the Government are entitled to have a similar majority in the Lords to the Commons, but that is not a principle that was understood in the last partial reform of the Lords in 1999. Indeed, the then Labour Government survived with fewer Peers in the Lords than the Conservatives for many years afterwards, and the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, as Leader of the Conservative Opposition, carried a great many votes against the then Government.
Could the Minister take us a little further on that principle? Does she assume that, in the event of a change of Government, it would be appropriate for the Conservatives to retire enough Peers to enable the new Government to gain an alternative majority, or does she think that the House will then have to go towards 1,000 Peers?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
As I said yesterday, I am not willing to speculate on what might or might not happen after a future general election. However, I repeat that the Conservative Party, despite winning a succession of elections, has still only 34% of the seats in the House of Lords. It is interesting that 408 Members were appointed over the 13 years from 2010, and 404 Members have been appointed over the 12 years between 2011 and 2022.
Parliament: Deferred Peerages
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I do not think I can add to what I have said already. It is very important not to believe what you read in the newspapers; sometimes they are right and sometimes they are wrong. A list has not been confirmed, and it is not appropriate or fair for the Government to speculate—or encourage speculation—on names that may or may not have been nominated or vetted. We need to be fair to those being considered.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, in the last manifesto that the Conservatives came up with, there was a commitment for a commission on the constitution to consider questions such as the future of the House of Lords and the next stage of reform. By the time of the coming election, there will be room for another 20 to 30 net Conservatives being nominated, so clearly the House would become unbalanced again.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I mean unbalanced in favour of the Conservatives, of course. What does the Minister think might be in the next Conservative manifesto about the next stage of necessary reform of the House of Lords?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I cannot even speculate on the next Conservative manifesto, but I can of course point out that, in spite of winning elections since 2010, the Conservative voice is still underrepresented in the Lords.
Unemployment Figures
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I say to my noble friend that we are increasing the AET hours from nine to 12, and then from 12 hours to 15. We are trying to get to a minimum of people working part-time, but it must take into account the barriers that they face. There is no point in trying to push people into work if it creates more havoc in their life without the proper support to get into work and stay there.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
Does the noble Baroness recognisethat there is a clear link between the lengthening waiting time for operations and those who are outside the labour force? Is that not one of the problems that the Government need to address—to speed up operations—if they want to get people in middle age back into the labour force?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I believe that the Secretary of State for Health, Thérèse Coffey, is focusing on this. I am sorry; I am really not trying to duck the issue, but the fact of the matter is that it is one for the Department of Health to look at. Clearly, we need more people to clear the backlog.
House of Lords: Appointments
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, as I said, the commission is an independent advisory committee, and the Government consider its advice carefully in whatever form it is given. The Prime Minister is democratically accountable and must have the final say on appointments. Of course, we are all due to debate my noble friend Lord Norton’s Private Member’s Bill, and while the Government have reservations about it, we welcome that opportunity.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, my recollection of the negotiations between 1997 and 1999 is that there was a general agreement that there should not be a majority for any group in this House and that this House should have a different composition from the House of Commons. I understood the Minister to be arguing that this House should have the same composition as the House of Commons. In the not unlikely event that a different Government appear after the next election, how does the Minister suggest her preference for how a majority for the new Government should be achieved? Should there be a voluntary retirement of, say, 60 or 70 Conservatives, or should there be the appointment of enough additional Members to give the new Government their majority, resulting in a steady increase in the number within the House?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I explained the situation about the 33% share that troubled us on this side of the House. The noble Lord’s other question is highly speculative. In addition, one can look back at the past as to what changes must be made when Governments change; I have already referred to that. We must now make sure that we are refreshing the House with new people right across the House. There are opposition and government Peers on the list; I welcome that and look forward to working with the new Peers.
Heatwave Response
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness. I entirely endorse what she said about the horrific nature of some of the pictures and films we saw, behind each of which is a person whose life has been affected; our hearts go out to all those people. I also wholly agree with what she said about the role of fire services in this particular instance, as well as all the other emergency and response services, which have worked so hard during those events.
I take the point the noble Baroness made about needing to learn lessons, and hopefully this will be one of the things that feeds into the new resilience strategy under preparation at the moment. I can certainly assure her that, in both the national security risk assessment and our work on resilience, the lessons of the last few days will be taken into account. I am grateful for what she said about those who have worked so hard.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the response to this extraordinary event has been extremely good. I hope the Minister will agree with me that the local responses were as important as the national effort. This reinforces the argument that we need to pay more attention to ensuring that our local authorities, their public health officers and others play a larger role and have the resources necessary to help their communities, because not everything can be done from London or Whitehall.
I hope that the events of the last two or three days have finally killed off the views of climate change deniers and those in the Minister’s own party who say that climate change adaptation is better than attempts to stop the transition in its tracks. While a more active Government would mean a larger state, that is less disastrous, they would argue, than climate change. I hope that he would also agree that the active interventions needed to stop climate change will involve a good deal of long-term public investment and that this may need to take priority over tax cuts. Those who insist that tax cuts are what come first under any circumstance—which seems to be the major theme of the current Conservative leadership contest—should take account of what we need to do if we are to adapt to climate change. This includes water storage—which the east of England in particular needs to invest in more—and ways of changing the built environment, particularly by greening our cities and providing houses and flats built not just for keeping warm but for keeping cool in the summer by, for example, reducing the amount of glass. In the longer term, a whole range of measures will be needed to ensure that we cope with the international transition. Can the Minister tell us a little more about the national resilience strategy: how do the Government plan to present that, and how will it engage a national conversation on the very substantial transition we need to make over the next five to 10 years?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his questions, and he knows that I share his deep and profound respect and affection for local government and the astonishing public service given by local government officers and councillors up and down this country. The local resilience forums referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, yesterday have performed admirably—I endorse what was said—during this response and are mitigating almost all the problems before escalation. DLUHC and partners held four resilience co-ordination group meetings, some of which were attended by the Secretary of State, and strategic co-ordination groups have overseen the local response. We have also welcomed co-operation with the devolved Administrations.
On the noble Lord’s broader points, I speak for Her Majesty’s Government, not for who one might want to lead a future Government. This Government, under the leadership of my right honourable friend Mr Johnson, have been, as I said earlier in the week, absolutely at the forefront of progress towards net zero. Our objective is that, by 2030, 95% of British electricity will be low-carbon. We are looking for 40,000 more jobs in the clean industries—a figure that we think will reach almost half a million by 2030. COP 26 shows the deep commitment of this Government to that battle. The resilience strategy is nearing completion and will be published after the Recess. I cannot advise your Lordships on the actual timing and date of its publication, but work is well advanced.
House of Lords Appointments Commission
Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord True (Con)
My Lords, there is an instant when you are thinking, then you have to stand up and give a reply to your Lordships’ always-penetrating questions. I was going to say in response to my noble friend Lord Balfe that I must have been pretty awful at putting arguments from this Dispatch Box because I have lost quite a few. I think the phrase is: “them’s the breaks”. We listen to the arguments put forward by your Lordships. I have had the privilege of taking—and am currently taking—legislation through your Lordships’ House, and have gained very much from the engagement and events with Peers on all sides, and indeed in Her Majesty’s Opposition.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the Minister makes the best of sometimes rather weak cases when putting them forward. He knows the Prime Minister much better than I do. Does he occasionally wonder whether the Prime Minister—a declared disruptor of our institutions—wants to undermine the current constitution of our second Chamber by flooding us with more and more appointments, and whether that will push us towards the next stage of much-needed reform?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, disruption is in the eye of the beholder. The historical policy of the Liberal Democrats is to replace your Lordships’ House with an elected Chamber.
Procurement Bill [HL]
Lord Wallace of Saltaire ExcerptsWednesday 13th July 2022
(2 years, 4 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Procurement Act 2023 View all Procurement Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 4-IV Fourth marshalled list for Grand Committee - (11 Jul 2022)
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, again, I have set out the argument. The noble Baroness disagrees but I am not going to repeat a third time the reason why we think maximising social value is unnecessary and would be a duplicative addition. Each procurement is different and what is appropriate, for example, for a large-scale infrastructure project is not for smaller transactional procurements.
Furthermore, procurement policy should be aligned with wider government policy and, as such, the publication of a national procurement policy statement is based on the strategic policy priorities relevant at the time. It would not be appropriate, in our submission, to include in the Bill priorities which can and probably will change —we have heard that they will—based on an Administration’s objectives. It is always important that policy priorities are included in individual procurements only where they are relevant to the subject of the contract.
On Monday, for example, noble Lords on all sides gave those of us on the Front Bench, I freely confess, a hard time in discussing the importance of minimising bureaucracy to facilitate SME participation in procurement. I took that away as a powerful call, which I have said we will discuss. As I think I have already indicated outside the Chamber, the Government are keen to meet and consider these points.
The paradox is that seeking to include extraneous requirements, which this and other amendments in the group risk, could make it harder for small businesses to bid for public contracts. One cannot talk the small business game, which noble Lords did strongly and fairly, while adding compliance requirements that make things harder for small businesses and help larger organisations to corner the market.
We think that Amendments 48 and 52 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, are unnecessary and potentially unhelpful to contracting authorities in attempting to impose on them an obligation to have regard to improving the economic, social, environmental and cultural well-being of the relevant area in and throughout all their procurement activities. In particular, they would place unnecessary burdens on them in relation to areas where this is of limited relevance and, again, open them up unnecessarily to the risk of legal challenge.
I wonder whether we would all agree—in fact, I do not have to wonder; I know that we would not all agree—on what carrying out procurement in a “socially responsible way” means. In a sense, that is implicit in the challenge from the noble Baroness opposite. We all might have rather different understandings of what that requires. Imposing a legal obligation of such potential breadth on contracting authorities is, we submit, exposing contracting authorities to unnecessary risk and complexity. Contracting authorities will be able to take account of measures that improve the economic, social and environmental well-being of the relevant area—this may differ from local authority to local authority, for example—where it is relevant to the subject matter of the contract. The Bill already allows this, which is absolutely in line with the Government’s levelling-up agenda.
On Amendments 53 and 58 in the names of my noble friend Lord Lansley and the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, as I said in our debate on an earlier group, the term “public benefit” is deliberately undefined; consequently, it is intended to be a flexible concept that gives contracting authorities a degree of discretion. Again, local authorities may have different views from place to place on what the most urgent benefit in their area is. Although all the proposed economic, environmental and social additions, including creating new businesses, jobs and skills, and reducing geographic disparities in the United Kingdom, might be facets of public benefit in different circumstances—I do not challenge that—we do not believe that it would be helpful to elaborate them in the Bill.
It might also be unfair to small contracting authorities to impose an obligation to consider the reduction of geographic disparities in the United Kingdom; they might be more concerned about disparities up the road. Doing so risks excluding other matters that might be more valid in specific circumstances. The Government consider that contracting authorities are better placed to make that decision in the individual circumstances at hand. We want contracting authorities to think about the extent to which public money spent on their specific contracts can deliver greater benefit than it otherwise would. I think that there is agreement in the Committee on that point. As I have said, each procurement is different; for example, what is appropriate in delivering a giant infrastructure project is not appropriate for smaller procurements.
I turn to Amendments 59 and 59A from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace—
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, I have listened carefully to what the Minister said but I am still puzzled. We are trying to craft a Bill that will have quite a long shelf life over a period when we may have a change of Government or some change in government. The Minister is saying that the catch-all public benefit is the only thing that we should have in the Bill in terms of principles and objectives. I would have thought that the consensus across all our democratic parties on public benefit and social value is a little wider than that and that it would help to provide guidance if that were spelled out rather more in the Bill. Otherwise, the principles and objectives will simply swing from one side to the other when different Governments come.
Everything cannot be left to each changing Minister to define. Surely the concept of public benefit is one that we share, as is the concept of social value. We also share the view that £300 billion-worth of public procurement sets a culture, the core of which I hope that all Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Greens share, because that is what we are attempting to get. The Minister is saying that we cannot agree on that. I am aware of some people—the Chicago school of economists and those who follow them—who deny the concept of public benefit altogether and believe that private benefit is the only thing that drives the economy, prosperity and society. I hope that we are not there and are not starting from there.
Lord True (Con)
The noble Lord always slightly loses me when he rides off in his speeches. I have a vision of him lying awake, trying to get to sleep, thinking of these terrible right-wing Conservatives whom he always cites and seeing the worst in everything. I thought that the great tradition of the Liberal party and liberal values, which I was brought up with and adhere to, is to give space to variety and not uniformity; there should be flexibility, with opportunities for local judgments and for contracting authorities to make them. The concept of public benefit is wide and flexible and should be so to give contracting authorities a degree of discretion to consider whether their specific contracts can deliver greater benefits than they otherwise would.
For example, contracting authorities are already able to make it clear in their technical specifications that fair trade options can be included in the products provided to meet the requirements of the contracts, provided that they do not discriminate against other products of other suppliers. The noble Lord objected to the mention of the terrible word “money”, but public procurement needs to have a focus on achieving value for money. The two things are not contradistinctions.
While I would expect contracting authorities to consider these matters where appropriate, it would not be helpful to elaborate them in the Bill, for the reasons that the Government have submitted, as they would not apply to all contracts. The course that the other side is proposing will lead to a uniformity imposed on a diversity, which is the antithesis of local values. I respectfully request that these amendments be withdrawn.
Lord True (Con)
A considerable number of amendments mandate that contracting authorities must have regard to certain items. Others add to the objectives in Clause 11. It is a difference of interpretation. The Government are in one place. On reflection, I think that perhaps people outside government circles will think that that is not as unwise as it now seems. I again respectfully suggest that the amendment be withdrawn.
The Earl of Devon (CB)
My Lords, I apologise; this is my first appearance on this Bill as I missed Second Reading. I rise to support the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. I have put my name to her Amendment 75A; I equally put my name to her Amendments 47A and 52A, which also go to the issues of social value and social enterprise.
I should note that I am a member of the APPG for Social Enterprise. Last year, I chaired an inquiry into the performance of social enterprise during the pandemic; we reported at Christmas last year. The outcome of that was to highlight the remarkable performance of social enterprise during the chronic conditions of the pandemic. However, it also highlighted how little understanding of social enterprise there was in government, particularly in Westminster but also in local government. We discovered that this was not as common Wales or Scotland, because social enterprise and social value are built into the fabric of their public procurement, which is so much better than what we have in England. I just wanted to make that point briefly. Amendment 75A is a means of addressing this issue and ensuring that local government is familiar with the role of social value and the purpose of social enterprise.
Before I sit down, I will just endorse and support Amendment 66 from the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. I do a lot of work with the South West Food Hub on the absolutely critical need for the procurement of good, healthy, locally sourced food, so I give this amendment my solid support.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, public and parliamentary debate on the national procurement policy statement is a very important aspect of this Bill. So is the relationship between Clauses 11 and 12. The Minister will have noted the consensus view across this Committee that clear principles and objectives should be included in the Bill—that is, primarily in Clause 11. We still hope that we will return on Report with appropriate language to enshrine
“in law the principles of public procurement”;
I have taken that from paragraph 27 of the Government’s response to the Transforming Public Procurement consultation, which they now seem to have forgotten. That document also states that 92% of those consulted were in favour of the proposed legal principles; it is therefore unacceptable that they have disappeared from the Bill as presented to this House. I cannot understand why the Government have abandoned their response, having undertaken an extensive consultation of that nature.
At present, the Bill leaves articulation of the principles of public procurement almost entirely to the Minister in post at the time, with the completed document to be laid before Parliament and subject to the negative procedure if time is found within the 40-day period to debate it. That is clearly inadequate. It stems from a resistance to parliamentary scrutiny and accountability that has been characteristic of the Johnson Government and, in particular, of Jacob Rees-Mogg in his various ministerial roles. However, it is not compatible with the principles of parliamentary sovereignty or the conventions of our unwritten constitution. I will do the Minister the compliment of assuming that he has always been unhappy with this approach to executive sovereignty and will be happier if the next Prime Minister returns to proper constitutional practice.
I have Amendment 75 in this large group, which seeks to ensure that a review of compliance with the national procurement policy statement takes place within three years, noting in particular how far it has in practice protected and promoted the interests of small suppliers, social enterprises and voluntary organisations in that period—a matter that concerns noble Lords across all parties in this Committee. I support the intentions of many of the other amendments in this group, from the insistence of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, that such a policy statement must be published on a regular basis to those that insist that it should cover a specific range of issues including social objectives, concern for the environment and measures to combat climate change.
Many of us would consider including climate change and sustainable development concerns as particularly important when some candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party are playing to climate change deniers on their party’s right. The Minister’s dogged resistance to putting any closer definition of the principles and objectives in the Bill makes the quality and regularity of this statement all the more important.
Good government requires a degree of continuity, not rapid switches of emphasis and guidance every time Ministers or Prime Ministers change. I remind the Minister that under our single-party Conservative Government since 2015 we are now about to embark on the fourth Prime Minister—four Prime Ministers in seven years under the same party. Some major departments of state are now on their eighth or ninth Minister. That is not continuity. Continuity and a degree of consensus are what contractors to government want, and that is more likely to emerge from cross-party debate in Parliament informed by wider public attention and contributions from stakeholders in the sector. That would promote greater stability and continuity both when Governments are in power for extended periods and when Governments change. Stability and a degree of continuity are what contractors want to see in their relations with government.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
I have just one more question. It is about periodicity. From the point of view of a contractor, it would be unwelcome to have too frequent changes in the public policy statement or too long periods in which the statement is not revisited. If I were a contractor, I would want to know when a new statement might be coming.
We have a relatively strong convention that strategic reviews of foreign policy and defence take place every two to four years or at the beginning of each Parliament. Would the Minister consider whether there needs to be something in the Bill to prevent new Ministers, when they come into their department, nine months after their predecessor took office, having their statement instead, which would be quite chaotic; or a Minister who had been there for seven years deciding that he did not want to have anything to do with it? Some encouragement for a regular period of ministerial statements might be a positive aspect for the Bill.
Lord True (Con)
As so often, the noble Lord makes an important point. I was charmed by one aspect of his arguments on continuity, when he complained that the Conservative Party kept changing Prime Ministers. I thought he was one of the main cheerleaders for a change in Prime Minister, so he cannot, in the immortal phrase, have his cake and eat it.
There is a duty in the Bill as drafted for a Minister of the Crown to keep the national procurement policy statement under review. It is not in the Bill—noble Lords have not been particularly receptive to the argument I put forward, although the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has shown his eagerness to get his hands on the levers of power and use them—but the Government’s intention, with great generosity, is that it should be possible for a review of the NPPS to be undertaken in each Parliament. If one made a period of eight years or whatever statutory, then a new or different Government coming in would have to task primary legislation to make that change. That is the kind of structure we have been trying to operate in. Part of the reason the Bill has been framed in the way it has is to leave flexibilities, some of which your Lordships do not like and some of which at least one of your Lordships does.
I turn to Amendment—
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, I want to make a point about proportionality. It arises under the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and runs through much of the Bill. In a sense, I am asking a general question but hanging it on the hook of Amendment 120. It is a point of some concern to small organisations; we are talking here about small charities and local voluntary organisations. In much of the debate, people have referred to businesses and enterprises, but this will also apply to local voluntary organisations and charities, which clearly do not have the resources or staffing to deal with the scale in the way that an organisation such as Oxfam, for example, could. They have their local job to do; to a certain extent, spending a lot of time drawing up a bid to provide a service will be a diversion from their work. Proportionality must have a role in assessing a contract. I am intrigued and ask the Minister to give some indication of an overall perspective on proportionality as it affects local organisations, charities and voluntary organisations.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, with apologies for missing some of this debate, I will speak briefly to my Amendment 129, which relates to Clause 22 and the incompatibility of subsections (2) and (5). Clause 22(2) states:
“In setting award criteria, a contracting authority must be satisfied that they … are sufficiently clear, measurable and specific”.
Clause 22(5) then sets out those “clear, measurable and specific” elements. In paragraphs (a), (b) and (c), it is indeed specific: they deal with
“the qualifications, experience, ability, management or organisation of staff”
et cetera. However, over the page, Clause 22(5)(d) sounds as if the drafter was late, tired, exhausted and gave up. It refers to
“price, other costs or value for money in all the circumstances.”
I am sorry that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is not here to tell us how one might legally interpret “in all the circumstances”.
What we have drafted as an amendment is one that is as specific as paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) on what those circumstances might be. It sets out the standard phrases that have been used in the Government’s previous documents and draft statement. I merely suggest to the Minister and those behind him that paragraph (d) simply is not fit for purpose as it stands. The phrase “in all the circumstances” should not be in a Bill of this sort. It either needs to be cut or to be expanded to the sort of specificity that (a), (b) and (c) include. My amendment suggests what that might be.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords—oh, I have just thrown all my papers on the ground. Actually, I do not need them. I am holding my list of government amendments, which I used to follow the Minister carefully as he went through them all so that I did not miss anything he said.
I sincerely thank the officials, who have spent a long time bearing with me and my noble friend Lord Coaker, going through the government amendments carefully so that we properly understood the implications and which ones were tied together, if you like. Many of the amendments provide helpful clarification, so I put on record my sincere thanks for the officials’ time and patience. It has been very important.
I have a few amendments in this group. The first, Amendment 101A, looks to ensure that contracting authorities consider potential health contractors’ records of ensuring
“affordable access to their products in low and middle-income countries and to the NHS”.
Of course, this is in the light of the pandemic, because it covers consideration being taken in public health emergencies of the international concern around this and the impact on countries that are less well off than us. With these amendments, we want to increase access to vaccines, medicines and diagnostics by attaching conditions to health products and research and development contracts in order to facilitate global manufacturing, because that was clearly a problem recently during the Covid pandemic.
It is also about having assurances that taxpayers’ money is being spent according to socially responsible principles in circumstances like that. If you can attach conditions to public spending on health procurement and R&D to have greater access to health technologies globally, this can help to bring the health crisis to an end sooner. We know that many of the Covid variants came about in countries that have very low vaccination rates. So it is about looking out and upwards for the future.
There is already some precedent for attaching conditions to pandemic tools to improve access. Paragraph 84 of the Government’s 100 Days Mission report says:
“We recommend that governments should build in conditions into their DTV funding arrangements to ensure … access to DTVs at not for profit and scale, which is to be enacted if a PHEIC is declared.”
So we can do this if we want to. The pricing and timing of delivery are important for gaining more equitable distribution.
Many low-income and middle-income countries have been calling for more meaningful control over their pandemic responses. Of course, they cannot really do that if they do not have access and are not then able to manufacture their own vaccines, which is what many of them were calling for. Again, if you remove intellectual property barriers, you can do this, but we need to look carefully at how we would manage that. Perhaps the Procurement Bill is not the right place for this, but it is certainly the right place to have a discussion and debate about it and to look at how we can move things forward.
My other amendments are Amendments 528A and 528B. I am slightly confused about why we are debating these and Amendment 528C of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, at this stage, when the government Amendment 528, to which they relate, does not come up for debate until group 14. It strikes me that we are likely to end up having exactly the same debate all over again. The Minister may not have an explanation for that, but I apologise in advance that we will revisit this.
I will be brief because we will come back to this. As I say, Amendment 528A is again about affordable access for middle-income and low-income countries, and Amendment 528B is about requiring contracting authorities to consider a potential health contractor’s record of ensuring affordable access to its products. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, for supporting our amendments. We support Amendment 528C of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, but I am sure that we will have another debate on group 14, as I said.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
Perhaps he would care to consider whether paragraph (c) should be reduced in length, because if my suggestion would be too specific, then paragraph (c) is already much too specific, and we had better cut it down.
Baroness Worthington (CB)
Sorry to interrupt, but just to clarify, it seems to me that the reference to “maximising public benefit” in the Bill is completely and utterly superfluous and has no meaning. The Minister’s response has further confirmed that the only criteria that can really be taken into account are value for money and cost. We will need to return to this at Report, because it now seems very clear that this is not an accident or some kind of desire for flexibility; it is really saying that there is only one thing that counts, and that is cost—and in the short term.