Civil Service Pension Scheme

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 Lords Chamber

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

There are two separate parts to this, which include the current contract. On debarment and the Procurement Act, while I cannot go into the specific details of this case right now, I assure the House that the Government remain committed to taking necessary and proportionate actions in accordance with the law.

With regard to Capita as a supplier, we need to remember how many contracts it supplies to government. It has a total of 85 contracts across the public sector, 39 in central government and 46 with the wider public sector. While there have been significant, outrageous failures in this contract, the reality is that, in operating its other contracts, it is currently meeting 87% of its KPIs, so this has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. However, to reassure Members of your Lordships’ House, outside of the contract for the Civil Service and the Royal Mail pension schemes—I updated the House on the latter earlier this year—the Cabinet Office does not have any further contracts with Capita.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that a figure of 23,000 has been identified as the number of those who have been caught by this problem? Those who are newly retired may still have payments to make on mortgages on their houses and may be in danger of losing them. Is there no mechanism that can be brought forward immediately to make estimated payments to those who have a pension entitlement but no figure coming through so that they avoid the worst excesses that could come their way unless this is resolved?

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

The noble Lord is right that this is affecting people’s day-to-day existence—we have seen in the news coverage at the weekend quite how heartbreaking that has been. We are working on a case-by-case basis. Some of the most harrowing cases have been raised with colleagues at the other end of the building and we are working with MPs, including by having virtual surgeries every day since 29 May, to help them support their constituents in this space.

I want to raise two specifics that it is important for your Lordships to be aware of. First, we have doubled the amount available in transitional support loans—it was £10,000 last time I was at the Dispatch Box on this issue; it is now £20,000 that is available to everybody who is not yet accessing their pension. I urge noble Lords, if they know people in this space, to let members of the scheme know that they are to contact the department they worked for and they can access £20,000 in a loan. We have also introduced a process to pay interest in respect of pensions payable by Capita from 1 December 2025 where full benefits are paid more than one month after retirement. The interest rates applied will be based on Bank of England base rates plus 1% for the period of delay between retirement and payment. However, the noble Lord is right: we need to do this as quickly as possible and get people their money.

Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill

Lord Wigley Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, very briefly in the gap, I flag up my support, and that of Plaid Cymru, for the Bill’s general objectives, although we have reservations on some of the detail, which I hope I can pursue at later stages. I also wish the Minister well in his new duties.

Before entering Parliament, I worked for two major steel-using companies: the Ford Motor Company at Dagenham, and Hoover washing machines at Merthyr Tydfil. Steel was a basic ingredient of both products. When I started working, steel employed over 100,000 workers in Wales. The danger then was of such manufacturing processes becoming vulnerable to new techniques or being undercut by overseas manufacturers. Modernisation was essential. The third quarter of the 20th century saw the nationalisation, denationalisation, renationalisation, and then in the 1980s the privatisation, of steel—hardly conducive to attracting the investment needed to modernise that industry.

At that time, as now, steel had strategic importance in defence policy. Surely that is the real backdrop to this Bill. I accept that, for defence purposes, the UK requires a steel industry that is not vulnerable to commercial or strategic decisions taken by overseas industrialists or Governments, or the whims of financial markets. If steel has that level of strategic importance, all the eggs should not be in one basket. We need at least two or three centres where the capacity, technology and skills are available and not vulnerable to being undermined by physical or cyber attacks.

It is in that context that I view the Bill before us. I have in mind the implications for iron and steel manufacture at Port Talbot. The main reservations Plaid Cymru has about the Bill is whether its powers will be used to safeguard the steel industry in Wales. There is widespread belief that the steel industry at Port Talbot has not been treated on an equal basis with that at Scunthorpe. We do not claim that Port Talbot should have preferential treatment, but neither should Scunthorpe. Both are needed, and both should be developed in a manner that avoids strategic, economic or defence needs being limited to one location. That would be nothing less than strategic myopia and a blunder of monumental dimensions. So the assurance I seek is that the Bill is not the prelude to building up Scunthorpe at the expense of Port Talbot. I will seek to clarify whether the public interest test applies equally to Port Talbot and Scunthorpe, and whether equivalent resources will be available to both Port Talbot and Scunthorpe. Both plants need to be as effective, productive and resilient as each other.

While Port Talbot is the major plant in Wales, other steel locations such as Shotton and Llanwern should be developed appropriately. A diversity of capacity, technology and experience is needed to ensure a steel industry that responds to commercial and strategic needs. At later stages, we may also want to probe how “public interest” is defined. Defence and strategic considerations are clearly within such a definition, but the public interest may extend much further, as the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, implied in his comments a few moments ago. There must also be a provision requiring the UK Government to work closely with devolved Governments in implementing the Bill. I shall be grateful for whatever assurances the Minister can give me, and I look forward to his response.

Crown Estate: Wales

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question, but on the point about oversight, a Crown Estate commissioner with special responsibility for Wales will be appointed in due course. As far as offshore wind is concerned, for Wales a priority is to deliver certainty. Retaining the current model avoids fragmenting a cross-border Celtic Sea market and preserves investor confidence at a sensitive point for floating offshore wind. Further devolution would risk fragmenting the energy market, undermining international investor confidence and disrupting activity elsewhere in the Crown Estate.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

Is the Minister not aware of the reply given by a Minister in the other place to the MP for Anglesey, Llinos Medi, when the Government confirmed that they had no assessment of how many jobs would come to Wales from the new offshore wind projects in the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea? Is the Minister aware of the very real concern in Wales that these projects will be bypassing Wales’s supply chains, losing economic potential? Is it not necessary for power and authority over the Crown Estate to be transferred to the Welsh Government so that they get the priority that they deserve?

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

Offshore will create up to 5,000 jobs—on top of the 3,000 jobs that will be created by the building of small modular reactors on Anglesey. It will provide energy for 1.5 million households. We are aiming in the right direction. As far as the supply chain is concerned, we will be investing £50 million for a supply chain accelerator and up to £350 million for enabling port and supply chain infrastructure to come forward.

Barnett Formula: Wales

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Wigley]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to review the Barnett Formula to ensure needs-based funding in Wales.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Wilson of Sedgefield) (Lab)]

The Barnett formula is a key part of the arrangements for pooling and sharing risk and resources across the UK. It is simple and efficient and provides a clear and certain outcome. The inclusion of a needs-based factor in the Barnett formula ensures that it accounts for the high relative needs of the Welsh Government and funds them above Wales’s independently assessed level of need compared with equivalent UK government spending in England.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, when the Barnett formula was first established, more than 100,000 people worked in coal and steel in Wales; that is now down to under 5,000. Does the Minister recall Lord Barnett admitting that his formula was outdated, with the consequent underfunding of Wales hidden by European regional grants, which have now ended? Has the Minister seen Cardiff University’s recent report stating that Wales receives far less than its population share of funding for reserved functions such as justice and railways, calling for the tripling of the Senedd’s borrowing capacity and for full income tax devolution? If the Minister cannot commit to a needs-based formula, will the Government at least now take the opportunity to give the Senedd parity of financial powers with those that the Scottish Parliament now has?

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. The Barnett formula does reflect the higher level of needs in Wales. A 5% needs-based factor in the formula ensures that Wales receives fair funding. It is the biggest uplift since 1998, when devolution started. As far as the railways are concerned, the UK Government are responsible for heavy railway infrastructure across England and Wales—it is devolved, I believe, to Scotland—so spend money on railways in Wales, rather than funding the Welsh Government to do so. This is consistent with the funding arrangements for all other policy areas reserved in Wales. Wales continues to benefit from rail investment. At the 2025 spending review, the Chancellor announced an investment in Welsh rail of at least £445 million.

Devolved Authorities: Use of Resources

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. I want to focus on the big issue that is confronting this country—whether it is Ireland, Scotland, Wales or England—which is growth. My noble friend pointed out that the city region and growth deals are funded by the UK Government. The Scottish Government are receiving £119 million in 2025-26 for city and growth deals. The Government confirmed at the Autumn Budget that investment in the Argyll and Bute growth deal will continue to be available and will be supported by a rigorous value-for-money assessment as part of the review. The £25 million Argyll and Bute growth deal was signed in March 2025. There are other elements to growth in Scotland: one of the main ones is that GB Energy will be based in Aberdeen.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I welcome the statement made by the Minister that it is indeed for the devolved authorities to spend the money that they receive in accordance with their own priorities. He mentioned the Barnett formula; will he admit that whereas it may be working very well for Scotland, it is not working well for Wales, and it certainly needs to be reconsidered? Will the Government please address that?

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

Because of the Barnett formula, Wales receives 15% more than the average for the rest of the UK. We also need to point out some of the advantages of the Welsh and UK Governments working together. Under the AI opportunities action plan, Vantage Data Centers, which is working to build one of Europe’s largest data centre campuses in Wales, announced plans to invest £12 billion, providing 11,000 jobs across Wales. There are also expected benefits in direct payments for 150,000 workers in Wales through the minimum wage rise. There are 2.1 million people in Wales who will benefit from the extension of the 5p cut in fuel duty.

Scottish Government: Devolved Competences

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I have no idea about the costs of those endeavours. However, I have no doubt that Scottish taxpayers will reflect on whether they were a good use of funds and whether the Government in Scotland should not be concentrating on the things that they are responsible for: health, education, social care and other matters.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, far be it for me to intervene on the internal squabbles of our Scottish cousins, but would the Minister not accept that there are many aspects of policy that are devolved, including cultural and economic matters, where there may be an overlap between the devolved powers in Scotland—or in Cardiff for that matter—with UK powers? What is important is that there is good communication and there is a respect from each end on such questions. When such matters arise, London, as much as Cardiff or Edinburgh, should inform the other about their interests and work in harmony to get the best for Scotland, Wales or wherever.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord. There are well-established arrangements that underpin intergovernmental relationships. They do not always work. They are led by DLUHC, and I believe Brendan Threlfall is the director-general, working under Minister Gove. A recent good example would be the work together on green freeports—where there is overlap —with both the Inverness and Cromarty Firth freeport and the Firth of Forth green freeport. The Scottish Government have also been working on Project Gigabit very well, and the UK Government have contributed £50 million to this. It is important that people understand the devolution settlement and pursue the things that can be helpful on both sides.

Minister for Disabled People

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

The Government are doing just that. The noble Baroness will know that the national disability strategy promised in the 2019 manifesto was held up in the courts. That is now behind us because the courts found in favour of the Government. We are also developing a disability action plan for the next 12 months. These are immediate actions to help people. The consultation on the action plan closed in October, and we will carry that forward very soon.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, when the definitive Disability Discrimination Act 1995 was passed, not only was there a senior Minister of State in charge but the then Prime Minister, John Major, took a direct personal interest in that matter. Does the present Prime Minister take any personal interest?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

The present Prime Minister does take an interest. I re-emphasise that the Budget had a major package for the disabled. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions represents the disabled at Cabinet. Even more importantly, we all have a duty in relation to the disabled. I work to try to get the disabled into public appointments; we debated One Login in the Moses Room and talked about its accessibility. The whole point about the strategy is that it is cross-cutting, and it helps us to move forward and help the disabled into life, because they can make such a great contribution.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 26th October 2022 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Wigley]

491: Clause 99, page 62, line 41, after “wholly” insert “or mainly”

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

I congratulate the Deputy Chairman of Committees on that “Just a Minute” miracle. I will speak to Amendment 491 standing in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd.

We return to the question of the relationship of Wales to the rest of the provisions of the Bill, which we touched on way back in May or June. It was certainly a very long time ago. A certain amount of water has gone down the river since then, but none the less, the representations made by the Welsh Government to the UK Government at that time, as well as to those of us serving on this Committee, are still matters that need to be finally aired before we move out of Committee.

I note, as it is relevant to Amendment 491, that the Government did not move Amendment 490. If I am right in my understanding of that, the content which Amendment 491 seeks to amend is not changed. Amendment 491 therefore stands in relation to the Bill as it was originally formulated. I am grateful for that clarification.

The Welsh and UK Governments have, by and large, worked very closely together on the Bill, and there has been quite a close meeting of minds and a considerable amount of harmony. However, there is one matter which the Welsh Government have raised with us. The Minister concerned is seeking an amendment to the definition of the WCAs, with a view to ensuring that the clauses work more fairly in relation to some cross-border procurements—single procurements which relate to both Wales and England. The Minister in Cardiff wrote to the Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency on 18 May, raising this question, and discussions thereafter took place. None the less, to the best of my knowledge, there has been no amendment to the Bill that has met the question about procurement relating solely to Wales or of whether it should read, in the words of Amendment 491, “wholly or mainly”.

We are talking about the awarding of

“a contract for the purpose of exercising a function wholly in relation to Wales”.

The question is whether we put in “wholly or mainly” relating to Wales. That amendment is needed for the Bill to work effectively. One only has to think of certain of the procurements that the Welsh Government, or an agency on their behalf, are making, which may be having an effect both in Wales and over the border. One thinks of procurement in relation to water and rivers, for example, where the river runs from Wales to England. Quite clearly, in making a procurement one cannot be absolutely certain whether the product or service that is being procured relates solely to Wales, or to Wales and England. One thinks of certain aspects of the health services along the borders where that again will arise.

It seems sensible to put in the words “or mainly” to ensure that the Welsh Government, or anyone else who is concerned with this, do not get caught in a tangle about what is covered by the Bill and what is not.

Given that there has been such a close working relationship between the Welsh and UK Governments on this matter, I am surprised that there has not been a meeting of minds. If there has been some non-legislative agreement that has covered this, that we may not know about in this Committee, I would be glad if that was pointed out. I am not speaking to the other amendments in this group because they do not seem to be dealing with the same point. I would be glad to have the Minister’s response in relation to Amendment 491. I beg to move.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, these are different subjects, and before we turn to how regulations are to be agreed, I will turn to Amendment 527. It might be helpful if colleagues, if they have a moment, look at Schedule 11. Clause 107 sets out in Schedule 11 the repeals of legislation resulting from this legislation. The third item under “Primary legislation” says:

“An Act of Parliament resulting from the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill that was introduced into the House of Commons on 11 May 2022.”


My amendment relates to whether it would be appropriate for the whole of that piece of legislation to be repealed if it were amended in the other place or in this House. As it stands at the moment, the Bill implements the procurement chapters of the two agreements. They will be implemented by their being added to Schedule 9. That is absolutely fine—it is not the issue. The issue is if the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill is amended. It was not amended in Committee in the other place, but there is an amendment down on Report in the other place in the name of Nick Thomas-Symonds, for the Official Opposition, which adds a clause that says:

“The Secretary of State must publish an assessment of the impact of the implementation of the procurement Chapters within twelve months of the coming into force of Regulations made under section 1 of this Act and every three years thereafter.”


It probably will not be passed, but let us say for the sake of argument that an impact assessment was passed here—or an impact assessment or report on the impact was required here in relation to the Australia and New Zealand trade agreements more generally—into the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Act. I think either House would then expect it to happen. However, it would probably not happen because the Procurement Bill will become the Procurement Act, and when it comes into force it would repeal the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Act and all that is in it, regardless of whether it has been amended.

The point of my Amendment 527 is to repeal the provisions of the Act resulting from the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill in so far as they were included in the Bill at its introduction. Therefore, if there is an amendment, it would not be repealed by virtue of this provision. That is the question. We are at the stage of having further conversations, and I would be very happy to have further conversations with my noble friends about this matter before we get to Report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for her response to this debate. I am sure that my Liberal Democrat friends will be happy with the assurances that they have been given of further discussion on the other amendments. On the basis of the commitment given by the Minister to seek an agreement with the Welsh Government on this matter, and that discussions are still ongoing, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 491.

Amendment 491 withdrawn.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 13th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise for my late arrival. I will be brief. Amendment 65 in my name and the consequential Amendment 546 seek to put more detail in the Bill in relation to the national procurement policy statement. I shall not rehearse all the arguments that have been made but simply say that the issues highlighted by Amendment 65 are enduring and long-term goals of government. There is a need to see that they are continuously integrated into government policy-making, as the noble Lord who spoke before me just highlighted. We need to have clarity if we are going to make transitions happen in our economy that make it fit for the future. It is entirely appropriate that the Bill should set out specific guidance for the policy statement on these long-term, transitional issues. All procuring parties need to have clarity of purpose set out for them with no doubt. I agree that the continued resistance to this signals something that we should be very concerned about, because it indicates a degree of deviation from accepted policy in other parts of the Government and across all parties. We would like to see something in the Bill and would very much welcome discussions with the Minister on this topic as there is a strong degree of consensus on this issue.

I also strongly support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, which would make it a requirement that the statement be published rather than there being merely a power. It seems entirely correct that that should be changed to make it a duty. I am also in favour of Amendment 66 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. Part of the reason I was late is that I was at a meeting discussing a response to the Government’s food strategy. There are some very important things in that strategy. We need levers with which they can be delivered. You cannot simply make policy statements and expect things to happen. If the Government are seeking greater reliance on British-grown, healthy, nutritious food, the procurement process is the way to do that, and we must see more clarity on that in the Bill. I fully support that amendment.

I also support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. We as a Parliament should be more included in the process through which the policy statement is derived, and I fully support her amendment that seek to improve the process by which we scrutinise and agree the statement.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I have waited until the latter stages of this debate before intervening, for the simple reason that my Amendment 78A deals with totally different subjects from everything else that has been debated. I overwhelmingly agree with the comments made in the general debate, but I will not follow them through at this point.

I will speak briefly to my Amendment 78A, which is included in this rather diverse group. It relates to what I might call the “Welsh clause”—Clause 13. I was glad to hear the comments of the noble Earl a moment ago on the way that policy is being unfolded in Wales. That point has arisen on a number of occasions, in various debates.

We have already heard from the Minister that there has been close co-operation between the Welsh and UK Governments in reaching an agreed approach and wording, reflected in this Bill. That being so, it is surely of fundamental importance that this clause is not distorted or undermined by later legislative steps taken by this or any future UK Government. This amendment, if passed, would require agreement by Senedd Cymru to any proposed changes to this section. That is not an unreasonable proposition, given that the clause relates solely to Wales and is itself predicated on an approach of good will and co-operation. All that is needed by this amendment is a straight majority of Senedd Members present and voting.

In the spirit of co-operation in which Senedd Cymru, the Labour Government and Plaid Cymru have approached this matter, I invite the Minister to accept this amendment.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. I agree with him, but I will take us back to the issues that have mostly been covered in this group. There are six amendments to which I have attached my name and I am sure the Committee will be relieved to know that I am not going to speak to them all.

I will speak chiefly to Amendment 61 from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, to which I have attached my name. It was very kindly introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, although it was not backed by her. I will now attempt to present the argument in its favour. I stress that the intellectual work on this has been done very much by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, but, when I saw the amendment, I thought it was so important that it needed to be picked up.

The purpose of this amendment is linked to the description of the national procurement policy statement in Clause 12, which is

“setting out the Government’s strategic priorities in relation to procurement.”

Wrestling with all the government amendments and the complexity of this Bill has been challenging for the small Green group, but I understand that there are no government amendments to change “procurement” in Clause 12(1) to the technical term “covered procurement”. It is the Government’s intention that their strategic priorities should apply to all public procurement, including below-threshold procurement, light-touch procurement, international agreement procurement, and defence and security contracts.

As noble Lords have been talking about a lot in this group, the first part of this clause is the achievement of targets set out in the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Environment Act 2021. I posit that there are good reasons to put statutory obligations such as these in a list of strategic priorities; if they are not included, they are effectively deprioritised, which would be potentially damaging to the achievement of targets that have been mandated by Parliament, with very strong cross-party support. To pick up the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, these are things that have been agreed but need to be delivered on.

On that point about delivery, I refer to the report two weeks ago from the Committee on Climate Change. In what has to be called the strongest of language, it spoke about “major policy failures” and “scant evidence of delivery”. Through this procurement, we need to see this urgent delivery.

In introducing this group, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, suggested that this was a list of pet clauses, but the first elements here, on the climate targets and the Environment Act, are clearly not pet clauses. We have covered proposed new paragraph (b) about the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 at length, so I will not go back to that territory. I admit that proposed new paragraph (c) on innovation and competitiveness is not the wording I would have chosen and might perhaps fit in that category, but there is an important fourth point here with proposed new paragraph (d) on

“the minimisation of fraud, corruption, waste or the abuse of public money”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

Well, I did try to get there but I had an intervention, then another intervention. It would be discourteous not to respond to—or be provoked by, as some may feel—the odd intervention. Is that not the give and take of debate, which is what our blessed Parliament is all about? If I have given the noble Lord incorrect advice, I will correct it, but what I have read out is the legal advice that I have been given.

Amendment 78A tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, provides that a Minister of the Crown may not introduce a Bill in either House of Parliament to amend or omit Clause 13, which relates to the Wales procurement policy statement, unless, as the noble Lord explained, Senedd Cymru has resolved by a majority of those present in voting to approve it. This is an uncongenial part for the noble Lord: the effect of this amendment would be to fetter the power of this and any future Parliament. The Government therefore cannot accept this amendment. However, as I mentioned earlier—he was kind enough to allude to this—we respect the devolution settlement and the competence of Wales on this matter. I have placed that and the degree of co-operation we have with the Welsh Government on the record in Hansard. That due respect for the devolution settlement is something that the Government aspire to see continue in this case, but we cannot accept the lock that he requests in the amendment.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

I am grateful for and accept the integrity with which the Minister is putting that forward and the spirit in which he stated the difficulty that there would be with my amendment. None the less, he will be well aware that there are other forms of amendments that could be put forward, possibly on Report, to ensure that there is the necessary consultation and discussion before any changes in legislation take place. That form of words has appeared in other legislation. Could I invite him to consider that between now and Report? I think that that would be a good indication for those in Cardiff.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Worthington (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to two amendments in my name. I am grateful for the support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Verma, Lady Boycott and Lady Parminter. At this stage in Committee, we have had the debate about why we feel this Bill is lacking specificity, does not provide sufficient guidance and is a missed opportunity, so I do not propose to rehearse those arguments. I think that, if the Bill were different, we would not be seeking to amend Clause 22 on award criteria in this way. It is evident that we are trying to convey our concern that we need more guidance on these important long-term targets that need to be embedded in the procurement process.

I ask the Minister whether, under his interpretation of

“the subject-matter of the contract”

in Clause 22(2)(a), a contracting authority can set criteria that specifically relate to the public good that derives from environmental benefits that relate to the things we have put into our amendment. If that is the case, we have a workable solution. If it is not, we need something else in the Bill. To be clear, my question is: in setting award criteria under Clause 22, can a contracting authority put in specific, measurable criteria that relate to the wider public, environmental and social good?

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 124A, which stands in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, who is involved in other parliamentary duties at this point. She asked whether I would speak to it on her behalf, and I am pleased to do so.

The amendment specifically relates to the need for all contracting authorities to be required to ensure that the award criteria include environmental impact considerations. This, of course, is a provision which stands in its own right in the general context but also specifically relating to Scotland. It is worth noting that the genesis of this amendment comes from the Law Society of Scotland and, as such, we should take very good note of it. The society emphasises that for Scotland, procurement legislation is devolved, as we know, and that the regulations applicable to Scotland—those which have been transferred into Scots law from EU directives—include the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015, the Utilities Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2016 and the Concessions Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2016.

In fact, the Scottish devolution settlement specifies that all procurement matters that are not specifically reserved under Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998 are devolved unless, as always, the UK Parliament tries to modify them, subject to the Sewel convention. As we all know, use of the Sewel powers can be extremely controversial at times. The Scottish Government have flagged up their opposition to such intervention by the UK Government in the context of the Bill.

As noble Lords will be aware, the Green Party is a partner in the Scottish Government, procurement regulations in Scotland have a number of environmental considerations built into them and the EU principles largely remain in force. It is not the case that UK contracting authorities with reserved functions will be subject to UK rules. For example, the Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011 are UK-wide, as I understand it, and that has a significance in this context.

This amendment seeks to make it a statutory responsibility for contracting authorities, in setting award criteria, to

“take account of the environmental impact of the award”.

This would place a parallel emphasis on environmental impact in the context of English or UK contracts, as is the case in Scotland. As the Law Society of Scotland has stated:

“It is important that the Bill does not lead to confusion in the UK for parties, given that different rules will apply in the UK market”.


Inevitably, given the devolution settlement, there will be occasions when legislation in Scotland and England differs for a variety of reasons relating to different values, circumstances or aspirations, but where there is largely agreement on public policy, as there surely is on the environmental impacts to be taken into account, common sense would dictate that words along the lines of Amendment 124A should be built into the Bill.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 124 and 127 in the name of the my noble friend Lady Worthington. As always, I return to the issue of food: the Committee on Climate Change reported last week that the public sector serves 1.9 billion meals a year. That is an unbelievably big responsibility and impacts on the environment, our health, how people co-operate socially, what we grow and agriculture. If we cannot have principles about the environment, public good and public health within this public procurement then it is really not fit for purpose because this is, I think, a massive area of concern to everyone in this Room.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 11th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 38, 50, 97 and 100 in the name of my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe and, as she has already said, she has added her name to Amendment 534.

I will come to that in a moment, but I start with Amendment 86 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lansley. This returns to the question of preliminary market engagement and fostering the involvement of SMEs about which my noble friend spoke on our last Committee day in relation to his Amendment 88. Clause 15(1)(f) makes building capacity among suppliers a permitted purpose for preliminary market engagement. My noble friend’s amendment adds some words of emphasis so that capacity building should be particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises.

I know that noble Lords need no reminding of the importance of SMEs to the UK economy. They account for around 60% of employment and over half of turnover in the UK. Not all small businesses achieve scale and not all want to, but most large and successful businesses were small businesses once. We have a responsibility to ensure that SMEs are given every opportunity to thrive and grow. That is why we should be looking at this Bill on the important area of public procurement and its role in the economy and considering the way that can be used to foster SMEs.

SMEs find engaging with public procurement daunting. They simply do not have the time and resources to get involved in complex tenders, let alone things like dynamic markets. It has to be in the interests of both the individual contracting authorities and the economy as a whole to foster as much competition as possible and to assist SMEs in growing their businesses. Building capacity among SMEs is a good thing to do and this Bill should recognise that. It may occasionally be important to build capacity among larger businesses and my noble friend’s amendment does not preclude this. But large businesses have the kind of resources that make participating in public procurements pretty straightforward. SMEs, not large businesses, should be the focus of policy in this area.

My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe’s Amendments 97 and 100 also recognise that getting involved in public sector procurement is hard for SMEs. The complexity of procurement processes makes it quite likely that an SME might not satisfy all the participation criteria and even more likely that they will mess up on an aspect of the procedural requirements. They need to be cut some slack, which is what my noble friend’s amendments would do.

I am, as my noble friend knows, less convinced by her Amendments 290 and 295 because there are some serious issues in Schedules 6 and 7 which rightly debar businesses from public tenders. On the other hand, Schedules 6 and 7 are very heavy-handed and there may well be a case for further discretion to allow some of the matters in those schedules to be disregarded in the case of SMEs.

I now come to Amendment 534 to which the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, spoke so eloquently earlier. It is rather different from the other amendments in this group because it requires a report every year. It is relevant to SMEs because the first area of the report is about how procurement rules have impacted the award of contracts to SMEs. I think we are agreed that we want to see awards of contracts to SMEs growing, and that means making it easier to include SMEs in the process and helping them to win.

There have been some changes to the previous EU rules on which this Bill is largely based which could make it easier for SMEs, but I suspect that the overwhelming effect of the procurement rules as we have them in this complex Bill and the secondary legislation that will follow will continue to deter SMEs from participating fully in public procurement. We really ought to be keeping this matter under review. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, raised the issue of whether the health procurement rules are covered. I drafted the amendment with the intention that it should cover health, but I recognise that this is a very complex area and will need to be teased out later in Committee.

A second area covered by my suggested report is whether there is scope to simplify the rules while remaining consistent with the procurement objectives set out in Clause 11. This will also be relevant to SMEs because I believe the complexity of the public procurement code is a major barrier to entry for small and medium-sized businesses. I am sure that large businesses, large tenderers, are quite comfortable with having barriers to entry for small and medium-sized entities, but government and Parliament should not be comfortable with that, and we should at least be striving for greater simplicity and keeping it under regular review.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness. I support Amendment 38 moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and support very strongly the points that she and, more recently, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, have made. They relate to the pressing need to ensure that the burden on small businesses tendering for public contracts is addressed. This issue has arisen under other amendments, and I have no doubt that we need to get this nailed one way or another on Report. It is an important question.

We all draw on our experience. My experience, immediately before coming to the House of Lords after I had left elected politics, was when I chaired the board of Bangor University’s Bangor Business School. It related to the small business sector. These issues arose time after time. Some colleagues may be aware that way back, before entering full-time politics, I was involved in the manufacturing industry. I had two incarnations, the first of which was with large supernational companies, Ford, Mars and Hoover, when I was financial controller. Although those three corporations were not generally involved in public sector contracting, their approach to any question of contractual relationships was highly professional with relevant legal advice in-house and with the resources to buy in specialist advice when needed.

My second incarnation, which I undertook as a serving MP in the 1980s, was to chair a small company from its creation to when, after 11 years, it merged with a larger American-owned company to form a significant new entity employing 200 people at Llanberis in my constituency. We built—the hard way—the acorn from which that grew, raising our own capital locally and starting up by employing just one person full-time, an engineer to build automated diagnostic equipment for the medical sector.

In competing for contracts, we had to beat competitors that were much larger and with far greater resources and in-house expertise. A small company such as ours had a serious uphill struggle to compete on anything like a level playing field. We did so by being fleet of foot, resilient and flexible and by engaging proactively with potential customers. But it is unrealistic to expect SMEs to be in a position to compete on a level playing field with suppliers which have professional resources in depth. The danger is that such SMEs will be scared away from tendering for public sector contracts where the bureaucratic imposition is totally unreasonable for such small-scale operators.

In this context, the amendment is particularly relevant. If our company had not succeeded with the early contracts, we would not have grown to employ some 50 people, as we did at the point when the merger took place. Had we fallen by the wayside in that highly competitive situation, we would not now have the Siemens company that took over our successful company now employing more than 400 people at Llanberis, and with a further expansion a real possibility soon.

I support these amendments because I feel that there needs to be some mechanism written into the Bill to counterbalance the inevitable bureaucratic safety net which public sector bodies build with their procurement procedures. Providing some lower level of bureaucratic imposition on SMEs could make the difference between those companies, on the one hand, being suffocated out of the competitive arena by impositions that they cannot handle and, on the other hand, securing contracts which enable them, in the fullness of time, to grow, given the impact that that might have on our economy.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, many of my amendments and those to which I have added my name relate to the issue of promoting greater access to public procurement for small businesses, but for whatever reason none of them has come up in this group, so I will just make two brief points.

First, I very much support all the amendments in this group. I wonder whether they will successfully address the large-supplier focus of procurement hitherto and whether they will be enough to bring in those much smaller suppliers, many of which could make a real impact on the provision of, for example, personal services at a local level but which are often excluded on the ground of having too small an income or no track record of delivering high-value contracts, even when the contracts that they want to deliver are far lower than that and they have delivered them at that level. So I suppose my question to the Minister is: how will the contracting authorities––local authorities or whatever—be dissuaded from imposing, or persuaded not to impose, thresholds and contract terms that actually deter or prevent some of those smaller enterprises from bidding? We have heard a lot about opening things up to small businesses, but unless you put restraints on the contracting authorities, those opportunities may not work.

Secondly, I very much welcome the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, although it was spoken to first by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. It seems to me that one of the elements that is lacking from the Bill is any indication of how its provisions will be monitored and enforced. How will we know that it is working? I strongly support the review proposed in Amendment 534. Six years seems to be rather a long time to wait, but on the other hand this process will take time to work through.

Beyond that, I hope the Minister says something about how the Government intend to monitor the effect and impact of the Bill, specifically including whether it is actually succeeding in unleashing the energy, dynamism, innovation and entrepreneurship that come from smaller suppliers, and what mechanisms there might be to resolve the issue if it turns out that is not happening. I do not think we can rely on the courts, and certainly these small businesses do not have the will, resources or even time and energy to pursue issues such as this in court. So what mechanisms might the Government be able to use when the system does not seem to be working?