Public Procurement (British Goods and Services) Bill

Debate between Sarah Champion and Peter Gibson

2nd reading
Friday 15th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

The hon. Lady conveniently mentions the addition of the “Buy British” button on Ocado. Will she pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) for leading a fantastic campaign, bringing in that “Buy British” button on a number of supermarket websites? Will she also join my call for all the others to catch up and do the same?

[Sarah Champion]

The hon. Gentleman has had a premonition, as that is my next line. The hon. Member for Bosworth should indeed be commended for the “Buy British” button and we absolutely should roll it out across all websites, across all suppliers. Every supermarket and local shop should be proud to say that they stock produce that was made in Britain and made as locally as possible. That helps us on so many levels, particularly the environmental one. It also supports our workers, who are doing an amazing job in a very tough environment. I absolutely support the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) and the hon. Member for Bosworth for the work that they have done and are doing on this.

[Sarah Champion]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Nobody who procures with taxpayers’ money wants to do a bad job or waste money; the highest possible scrutiny is imposed. My Bill asks them to publish their decisions, in the hope that if Ministers follow up that data, they can see why decisions are made and how much of the procurement is from British suppliers. On his specific example, parents would love to know the trail of the food their children are eating. A recent poll by Deltapoll backs that up. It found that 81% of 4,000 people polled said that being able to buy British food was “very” or “fairly” important, while 94% of people said that support of farmers was “very” or “fairly” important. Despite overwhelming public and cross-party support for buying British, let us be honest that our farmers are struggling. The Office for National Statistics reported that over 6,000 agricultural businesses have closed since 2017. Meanwhile, the National Farmers Union reports that business certainty and confidence within British farming is at an all-time low.

Alongside the obvious economic and social benefits of buying more British food, such as boosting the economy and creating jobs, there are also ethical reasons for wanting more British food to be procured. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has long raised the issue of procuring authorities buying food from overseas that is produced to lower standards than in the UK, such as battery eggs and sow stall pork. Our animal welfare standards in the UK lead the world. Through my Bill focusing on buying British, we will also contribute to cruelty-free procurement becoming the norm.

My Bill will require contracting authorities to publish what proportion of food procured originates from suppliers in the UK. That will finally create an accurate measure of how much food the public sector procures from British farmers.

[Peter Gibson]

The hon. Lady is being incredibly generous with her time. I had the privilege of sitting on the Procurement Bill Committee recently. That was a lengthy Bill dealing with a whole panoply of procurement legislation to make our procurement system fit for the future. Will she make some remarks about why it is important for her Bill to progress today when measures in the Procurement Bill have not yet come into force, so we have not seen the results of that work?

[Sarah Champion]

I thank the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) for their work on that important Bill. I am trying to aid the process of that roll-out because, if my Bill passes, procuring authorities will have to publish what they are procuring. That will probably be the only data available to see whether the cross-party intention, as set out in the Procurement Bill, to try to get more British businesses supported through our procurement processes, is working. If it is not working, Ministers would have the information to make the updated guidance bolder. That data would enable Ministers to give procurement money to British businesses if they wished, and if that was not breaching any laws. I see my Bill as a help; I do not see it under- mining what is happening because of measures in the Procurement Bill.

There is something going on—the hon. Member for Darlington has anticipated my next point. Importantly, the Bill does not require public procurement professionals to take any specific action beyond reporting what has been procured and how that benefits the local environment. Such an obligation cannot reasonably be seen as compromising the UK’s international obligations, which is a concern the UK Government previously had with “Buy British” policies. The measure will benefit UK food producers on the principle that what is inspected is generally delivered. I am proud that the NFU, the Countryside Alliance and the RSPCA all helped me to develop the Bill, and they support it.

It feels as if the Government, and particularly the Minister, support it. I welcome the recent announcement of an independent adviser, the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince), to support the ongoing work to improve public sector food procurement. The areas of the review are strikingly close to those I seek to address with the Bill, so I am incredibly grateful that the Minister has offered the time of the hon. Member for Colchester, and hopefully the time of civil servants, so that we can work together towards those common aims.

I turn to another key driver behind the Bill, which is enabling small and medium-sized enterprises to access public contracts. SMEs make up 99% of UK businesses and account for 61% of employment. Despite being the beating heart of our economy, research from the Federation of Small Businesses has found that SMEs are effectively shut out of the public procurement system. Only one in five SMEs has bid for a public sector contract in the last three years. In the construction industry, a sector heavily reliant on SMEs, only two in five SMEs have bid for a public sector contract in the last three years. Of SMEs new to public sector opportunities—those with experience of between one and nine bids—49% have failed to secure a single contract in the last three years. The lack of transparency means that they do not know why they have failed. Submitting a tendering application is a resource-heavy process. If an SME keeps getting knocked back, the stats show that it will eventually stop trying.

The National Federation of Builders, a trade association representing the interests of small and medium-sized house builders, told me that one of its members had not successfully bid for a public sector contract for over a decade, even though it is well qualified to deliver. Sadly, this situation is replicated across most sectors. Of course some SMEs are rejected for good reasons, but there is clearly a cultural issue in public contracts being awarded to large, often multinational businesses over SMEs.

Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Sarah Champion and Peter Gibson

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Gibson]

This Bill aims to do two things. First, it introduces a mandatory database of taxi and private hire vehicle driving licence suspensions, refusals and revocations for all licensing authorities in England. Secondly, it creates duties on licensing authorities in England to report safeguarding and road safety concerns about drivers licensed by other authorities, and for those authorities to have a duty to take account of those concerns. These are essential changes to empower our licensing authorities to continue in their tireless work to keep the travelling public safe by giving them the information they need to make informed licensing decisions.

I have already spoken about clause 1, so I will move on to talk about the other clauses relating to the database and the responsibilities of licensing authorities to it. I will speak first to clause 4, as it pertains to the database itself, and then I will discuss clauses 2 and 3, which relate to the duties on licensing authorities to use it.

Clause 4 gives the Secretary of State the power to provide or designate a database to record the suspensions, refusals and revocations of taxis and private hire vehicles driving licences. This allows for a database, such as the NR3 database established by the Local Government Association and the National Anti Fraud Network, to be designated as the database that all authorities must use. This should help the Bill come into effect and provide its benefits much sooner, as this system is already being used voluntarily by many good local authorities.

Clause 4(3)(b) would ensure that there is a reasonable time limit for holding entries about a driver. The 11-year period specified in the Bill ensures that the information is available to licensing authorities to support their decision making, while still allowing, in line with other record keeping such as Disclosure and Barring Service checks, for that prior history to no longer be disclosed. The 11-year period broadly aligns with the filtering of less serious adult convictions within the regime in which the disclosure and barring regime operates. It is also worth remembering that all licensing authorities require drivers to be subject to an enhanced DBS check and most to a barred list check, with relevant convictions and non-conviction information disclosed as part of this process.

Clause 2 creates a duty on licensing authorities in England to record on the database information about certain suspensions, refusals and revocations. As explained earlier, authorities would have to record all suspensions, refusals and revocations of taxi and private hire driving licences where they have relied, at least partly, on relevant information, by which we mean safeguarding or road safety concerns. Clause 2 also ensures that those records are made promptly within five days of the decision being made and that authorities must keep their database entries up to date, including those as a result of appeals. That means that the information that authorities use to make their licensing decisions will be as current as possible, which is essential for effective decision making.

The database would also hold only basic information about a decision and the licence holder, to allow authorities to search effectively. To receive details of a decision, the authority would need to contact the relevant authority that had made the entry. That ensures that only those with a business need for the details of those licensing decisions can access them.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Bardell. On a point of clarification, will the fee associated with database entries be paid by the local authority or by the individual, and does the hon. Gentleman anticipate that it will be enough to cover all the administration costs, or does he think that the Government will need to, in effect, underwrite the database?

[Peter Gibson]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. From the information that I have been provided, because the majority of local authorities are already part of the National Anti Fraud Network, which runs the database, the additional cost that will be incurred by local authorities that were not already adding to the database in doing so is marginal. I think it will be a couple of pounds per driver entry, so it is a nominal cost, which I am sure she will agree is a small price to pay.