Procurement Bill [HL]

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 30th November 2022 Lords Chamber

I do not expect the Minister to accept my dismissal of the relevance of this arcane, antiquated constitutional doctrine, but I hope that the House and outside constitutional experts, on further consideration, will unite in rejecting this attempt to limit parliamentary sovereignty over the Executive.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly on Amendment 97, which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, has just introduced, concerning the procurement review unit. I am grateful to the Minister for organising a very helpful meeting recently outlining the Government’s thinking on the role of the PRU. This is not envisaged as a statutory body, so does not currently feature in the Bill, but it will have some important functions relating to SME engagement in public procurement, such as fostering much-needed culture change in the construction sector and promoting SME access through means such as training, transparency and, above all, better payment practices for public contracts.

These include making 30-day payment terms apply throughout the public sector supply chain, with the 30-day period measured from when an invoice is first received rather than when it is deemed valid. Contracting authorities will be required to publish their payment performance every six months. The payment performance review scheme, PPRS, run by the Cabinet Office, which has been underresourced in the past, will be given extra capacity, staffing and weight. The current system, based on reporting the volume of invoices paid within 30 days, can allow late payment of large sums to be drowned out by a high volume of lower-value instant payments. To give a truer picture, I hope the Minister might consider requiring the value of payments made within 30 days to be reported, as well as the volume.

The PRU will also carry out proactive spot checks to assess compliance with payment terms throughout the supply chain. The Minister might explore the possibility of using technology to track payment times, which might ultimately lead to more real-time transparency of payment performance. I understand that many construction firms already use technology to produce their payment reports.

These are all very welcome aspects of the Government’s plans for the procurement review unit. I hope the Minister will put them formally on record in her response, thereby averting, or at least reducing, the need for Amendment 97 to include the PRU in the Bill.

I end by congratulating the Minister on her piece in the Times on Monday confirming her commitment to making it easier for small firms to compete for and win public sector contracts. I hope the Times readership will actively support us in holding her and the Government to that commitment.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I can be brief. I thoroughly support everything that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said to us in moving his amendment. I do not need to repeat arguments that I placed before your Lordships earlier this week on Monday, in December last year, and then again in January and March this year, and even in the Question that we had just before our proceedings on PPE, which continues to be stored in the People’s Republic of China at a cost to us of some £770,000 every day.

I am extremely grateful that the Minister responded so quickly after our debate on Monday with a letter that I received this morning. For the purposes of the record, I will read out one paragraph. She wrote:

“You made a number of points about PPE contracts which have been found to have underperformed. I also understand you have asked written questions … on these matters. I appreciate your desire for more information on this and I will be writing to the Secretary of State highlighting both your views and those expressed by others in the House.”


That is a very welcome response and I am grateful to the noble Baroness for going to that trouble.

I have sent a copy of our Hansard from Monday to my noble and learned friend Lady Hallett, who is chairing the public inquiry to which the Minister referred during our debate on Monday. The Minister said that lessons would be learned, and that the Covid inquiry would

“cover procurement and the distribution of key equipment and supplies, including PPE”.—[Official Report, 28/11/22; col. 1593.]

I am grateful to her for that.

I have only one other point. On Monday, I raised the issue of repayments. That is not something that can wait for the several years it might take the public inquiry to make its recommendations. I refer the Minister to my two questions about defaulting PPE suppliers and the actions that will be taken through the faulty contract PPE recovery unit. I also asked about individual settlements, which, as she said, are protected by commercial secrecy. I asked

“how will Parliament and the public be notified about money returned to public funds by defaulting PPE suppliers through the actions of the faulty contract PPE recovery unit?”—[Official Report, 28/11/22; col. 1581.]

How will that work? Can the Minister illuminate us a little further? If she cannot, would she be prepared to put pen to paper in a follow-up letter to me as a result of today’s debate? I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, for giving us the opportunity to explore this issue further.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I support the single digital platform which is now covered by government Amendment 129 in this group, but I have one caveat. The benefits of the platform, in terms of efficiency—having all the procurement details in one place—will be undermined if contracting authorities are required also to publish tender information in other ways. That is what lies behind my Amendments 166 and 168 in this group. Like some of the amendments I spoke to on our first day in Committee, these have been suggested by the Local Government Association. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Moylan for adding his name to them.

These amendments propose two additional repeals within Schedule 11, the repeal schedule. Subsections (4)(b) and (5) of Section 89 of the Transport Act 1985 require local authorities to issue notices of tender individually to anyone who has given written notice that they wish to be notified. Amendment 166 would repeal that, because it should no longer be necessary. Amendment 168 would repeal Regulations 4 and 5 of the Service Subsidy Agreements (Tendering) (England) Regulations 2002 so that information on tenders will no longer be required, for example, to be published locally, including in local newspapers.

I hope my noble friend will see these two amendments as supporting the importance of the digital platform. I also hope that she will be able to assure the House that the Government will ensure that later legislation will not be allowed to undermine the platform by adding new and additional requirements, once it is up and running.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, I suggested earlier that the Government might explore the greater use of technology to track payment times. I also very much support the proposals in government Amendment 129 regarding a single digital platform for publishing notices, documents and other information, and I wonder if it might in due course be extended to provide a mechanism for monitoring and tracking payment performance.

While I am on my feet, I thank my new noble friend the Minister for her kind words earlier. I also point out to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that I was not earlier proposing an amendment to the Bill for improving payment practice, but merely speaking in support of the Government’s plans for the procurement review unit and seeking confirmation of those plans on the record. I am sorry that he is unfortunately not in his place here for me to draw that to his attention.