British Industry and Services: Public Procurement

Lord Pack Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble and gallant Lord is absolutely right: we need not just sovereign capabilities but sovereign skill capabilities so that we can build what we need, especially in the defence sector—he will not be surprised that I agree with him there. Defence is an area that we are working closely on. It is one of the pathfinder areas for the new procurement strategy that we have announced as part of the exemption from the Procurement Act 2023. A lot of this will have to be about what happens next. I was not aware of that specific case until the noble and gallant Lord raised it, but I will speak to my colleagues.

[Lord Pack (LD)]

My Lords, what progress are the Government making in ensuring that procurement processes for key public services do not result in them being dependent upon digital services which could simply be terminated at the decision or whim of a foreign billionaire or Head of State, who may of course not feel inhibited by detailed contractual obligations? They may decide to switch off the service and then let the lawyers just slug it out.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I wonder who the noble Lord is talking about. He will be very aware that we have to operate within a contractual framework; we follow the rules and always will, but he raises an incredibly important point. The way in which we procure all contracts has to be considered in the round. That is why we are changing the social value test to make sure that other factors beyond pure cost are considered as part of any negotiations. But also, as the world changes, we are making sure that appropriate AI tools and others are used not only as part of the contracts but to deliver on the contracts too—they are used by government as well as by our contractors.