Border Target Operating Model
Alex Burghart Excerpts(8 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
The Minister of State, Baroness Neville-Rolfe DBE CMG, has today made the following statement:
On 29 August 2023, the Government published the final border target operating model and confirmed our approach to border controls for goods imported into Great Britain. These controls will be progressively introduced from the end of January 2024 to better protect the UK against biosecurity threats and create a world-class border system.
The publication follows extensive engagement with stakeholders on the draft we published in April 2023. In response to this feedback, we have revised the timeline for the introduction of sanitary and phytosanitary controls, and have postponed the first implementation milestone by three months to give businesses sufficient time to prepare.
Bearing in mind our commitment on inflation, we have worked to ensure that the border target operating model does not impact costs for consumers. Our analysis indicates that, at most, the impact of the new model on annual consumer food price inflation will be less than 0.2% in total over a three-year period.
The border target operating model sets out the improved rules and processes that will apply to the import of goods into Great Britain. We have worked with the devolved Administrations to agree this approach, ensuring that a coherent model is introduced across the United Kingdom.
Our border controls on goods will include safety and security controls for EU goods, and sanitary and phytosanitary checks. This approach will reduce the risk of importing harmful diseases, including zoonotic diseases which are responsible for a majority of new and emerging infectious diseases in humans (including those with pandemic potential).
While the costs of new disease outbreaks cannot be quantified directly, previous outbreaks have had severe agricultural and economic impacts. Our new approach will fulfil the UK’s domestic and international obligations and uphold our reputation for the high regulatory standards that underpin our agrifood trading relationships.
The border target operating model will implement controls through three major milestones:
31 January 2024: The introduction of health certification on imports of medium risk animal products, plants, plant products and high risk food (and feed) of non-animal origin from the EU.
30 April 2024: The introduction of documentary and risk-based identity and physical checks on medium risk animal products, plants, plant products and high risk food (and feed) of non-animal origin from the EU. At this point, imports of sanitary and phytosanitary goods from the rest of the world will begin to benefit from the new risk-based model.
31 October 2024: Safety and security declarations for EU imports will come into force from 31 October 2024. Alongside this, we will introduce a reduced dataset for imports and use of the UK single trade window will remove duplication where possible across different pre-arrival datasets.
At west coast ports, businesses will face new checks and controls when moving Irish goods (i.e. any goods other than qualifying Northern Ireland goods) from Irish ports directly to Great Britain. The border target operating model sets out information on these new controls, which we will introduce from 31 January 2024. The date for the commencement of physical checks for nonqualifying goods moving from the island of Ireland will be confirmed in Autumn 2023. In line with the Windsor framework, we will ensure that Northern Ireland businesses have unfettered access when moving qualifying goods to their most important market in Great Britain.
We will continue to work with businesses and ports to prepare for the implementation of new controls.
Copies of the border target operating model were deposited in the Libraries of the Houses of Parliament over summer recess and remain available to Members.
[HCWS998]
Departmental Update
Alex Burghart Excerpts(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
The Minister of State, Baroness Neville-Rolfe DBE CMG, has today made the following statement:
I would like to update hon Members on the main items of business undertaken by my Department in advance of Summer Recess.
Strengthening ethics and integrity in central government
The Government are announcing today a wide-ranging programme of reform to strengthen ethics and integrity in central Government.
My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has today laid in Parliament the Government full response to the Upholding Standards in Public Life report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the report by Nigel Boardman into the development and use of supply chain finance (and associated schemes) related to Greensill Capital in Government, and the propriety of governance in light of Greensill report from the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.
This statement follows the reforms announced to the House in the written ministerial statement “Government Transparency and Accountability” of 15 July 2022, and concludes the Government obligations under the motion passed by the House on 7 June 2022, Official Report, column 728.
The Government are also accepting the three recommendations of Adam Heppinstall KC to review conflicts of interests guidance, consider advice on handling potential conflicts between candidates and Ministers, and consider whether changes are needed to the relevant section of the governance code on public appointments.
In addition to their response to these recommendations, the Government are also delivering further reforms to the business appointment rules beyond the scope of these reports, to both improve the experience for applicants and ensure a more consistent, risk-based approach. As part of this work, the Government will also be integrating into legally binding agreements its other obligations on former office-holders and employees, namely the Radcliffe Rules on books and memoirs, and the rules on the return of, and access to, papers from time in office.
These reforms to the Government’s ethics and integrity framework sit alongside the ongoing obligation on all office-holders to uphold their relevant codes of conduct, including the Civil Service Code, the Special Adviser Code of Conduct, the Ministerial Code, and the Code of Conduct for Board Members of Public Bodies.
Government transparency and accountability
Since 2010, the Government have been at the forefront of opening up data to allow Parliament, the press and the media to hold public bodies to account.
Transparency is crucial to delivering value for money, cutting waste and inefficiency, and ensuring every pound of taxpayers’ money is spent in the best possible way.
The Government will continue to look at how the range of information published by the Government can be improved and made as useful as possible to the public, press and parliament. The following subject areas include documents and information that the Government is due to publish.
Ministerial transparency
The Government will today be publishing the list of ministerial responsibilities on gov.uk. Copies will also be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses in Parliament. The list includes details of ministerial Departments, the Ministers within each Department, their portfolio responsibilities and private offices and the Executive agencies within each Department.
Departments will also be publishing routine transparency data on Ministers’ gifts, hospitality, overseas travel and external meetings for the period of January to March 2023. This data covers the returns for the Prime Minister, Government Chief Whip and the Leaders of the House of Commons and the Lords, as well as the Cabinet Office. Government previously published this data on 30 March, for the period of October to December 2022.
Transparency on special advisers
Special advisers are a critical part of the team supporting Ministers. They add a political dimension to the advice and assistance available to Ministers while reinforcing the impartiality of the permanent civil service by distinguishing the source of political advice and support.
Special advisers are temporary civil servants, and their costs are met by the Government Department in which they are based. Each year, the Cabinet Office publishes a report on the cost and number of special advisers across Government. Today, the Cabinet Office will be laying and publishing its report for the previous financial year, April 2022 to March 2023, which also contains a list of special advisers in post as of the end of the reporting period.
Departments will also be publishing routine quarterly data on special advisers' gifts, hospitality and meetings with senior media figures.
Transparency on senior civil servants
The Cabinet Office is also, today, publishing details of all Cabinet Office senior civil servants who hold outside employment for 2022-23, which is paid or otherwise remunerated, and has been approved in line with the requirements of 4.3.4 of the civil service management code.
Routine quarterly data on senior officials’ hospitality, expenses and meetings, along with business appointment rules advice, will also be published by Departments today.
Public appointments order in council
Yesterday, His Majesty the King’s Privy Council approved a refresh of the public appointments Order in Council, which lists the public bodies regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. The order was last updated in 2019.
As well as amending the schedule to reflect newly created, renamed or dissolved regulated public bodies since its last update, the changes take account of the machinery of government departmental changes announced by the Prime Minister earlier this year, and make an addition to the commissioner’s remit of the appointment of non-executive directors to the boards of ministerial Departments, in line with the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s recommendations.
[HCWS992]
Draft Official Statistics Order 2023
Alex Burghart Excerpts(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Official Statistics Order 2023.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. The order updates the list of non-Crown organisations that produce official statistics as defined in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. The Government and UK Statistics Authority want to see official statistics enabling sound policy decisions and providing a firm evidence base for decision making both inside and outside Government.
The code of practice for statistics plays an important role in ensuring that producers of official statistics inspire public confidence by demonstrating trustworthiness, quality and value in the statistics they produce. The order revokes and replaces the Official Statistics Order 2018, updating the list of UK non-Crown bodies that may produce official statistics. From December 2007, the Statistics and Registration Service Act has allowed the flexibility to add non-Crown bodies to and remove them from the authority’s remit by order.
The order provides an updated list of bodies whose statistical activities will be official statistics and so will be monitored by the authority. The authority will work with bodies designated as producers of official statistics to promote good practice in the production and publication of official statistics. It will monitor and report on the production and publication of official statistics, and assess the treatment of producers of official statistics against the code of practice, at their request, and publish the results of those assessments. If the statistics comply with the code, the authority will designate them as “national statistics”.
The changes are applied to UK-wide and English organisations. It is important to designate the bodies as producers of official statistics to bring them within the scope of the code of practice for statistics. That will help to provide assurance that the statistics they produce are trustworthy and of high quality, and have public value.
It is important to note that although the order covers a wide range of bodies listed in the schedule, the vast majority were already designated under the previous order, so this order makes a very minor adjustment. It adds five new bodies to the list in the 2018 order: the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, the Joint Information Systems Committee, the Regulator of Social Housing, Skills for Care Ltd and the Trade Remedies Authority. It removes five bodies that are no longer legal entities from the list in the 2018 order: the Health and Social Care Information Centre, the Higher Education Statistics Agency Ltd, Monitor, the National Health Service Trust Development Authority and the Natural Environment Research Council.
The order also alters the name of two bodies that were contained in the 2018 order: the National Health Service Commissioning Board is now recorded as NHS England, and Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Constabulary is now recorded as His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services. The UK Statistics Authority was consulted in preparing this order in accordance with the Act and is content for it to be laid. My Department laid the order on behalf of other Departments in preference to each Department laying an order for the bodies for which it is responsible. That is intended to make the best use of parliamentary time.
Alex Burghart
We have had a wide-ranging and engaging debate. In answer to the question from the hon. Member for Vauxhall about the Natural Environment Research Council, as I said in my remarks, NERC became part of UKRI in 2022, so it is no longer a legal entity and therefore ought to be removed from the order. Its removal was approved by the former Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and by UKRI itself. The Department confirmed that the Natural Environment Research Council does not produce official statistics, and engagement with UKRI confirmed that that organisation should not be included in the order.
I am happy to write to my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley on his point about pensions, and I will ask the authority what the position is.
Question put and agreed to.
Public Procurement Regime: Draft Regulations Consultation Part 2
Alex Burghart Excerpts(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
Further to my statement on 19 June 2023, I am today launching the second part of a public consultation on the draft implementing regulations that will form part of a new procurement regime. This consultation, which is highly technical and not seeking views on policy development, has been split into two parts. My previous statement launched the first part of the consultation which will remain open until 28 July 2023.
The second part of the consultation, announced today, focuses on the transparency provisions and notices that will be used by contracting authorities to fulfil their legal requirements under the Bill. It also includes information on the proposed approach to transitional arrangements for procurements already under way at the time that the new regime enters into force and the position on other legislation that will need to be amended in order for the full provisions of the Bill to take effect. We are also using this opportunity to consult on a proposal to use the power in the Bill at clause 120 to amend Bill provisions for private utilities with respect to the Preliminary Market Engagement notice, in line with our aim of minimising burdens on these private businesses.
The consultation we are publishing today, and laying in Parliament, gives everyone an opportunity to help shape public procurement for the future and I wish to encourage all involved in public procurement to have their say.
[HCWS949]
Bishops in the House of Lords
Alex Burghart Excerpts(10 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Tommy Sheppard
But there are plenty of occasions when it has happened, much to the chagrin of Members of the House of Lords who contributed to the Humanist Society’s report on the matter.
The final thing that I want to say about the way that the bishops operate is that the code of conduct in the House of Lords, and particularly its strictures on conflicts of interest, does not apply to the Lords Spiritual. In effect, it is accepted that they would not have a conflict of interest, or if they did, that it should be ignored. In effect, one Church—the Church of England—has 26 paid professional advocates, right at the heart of the constitutional arrangements of this country, who are there to protect and advance the interests of that institution. That gives the Church of England an unfair advantage in this democratic system.
In preparing for this debate, I looked at what happened in deep history, because the relationship between Church and state, and the history of bishops in the Lords, is very old. I read about a controversy in the time of Richard II, centuries before the country that I represent in this place was even part of governance arrangements. At that time, a majority of Members of the legislature were Church representatives. In fairness, no one would claim that was democratic, but a bunch of people took decisions, and the majority of them were representatives of the Church.
That changed with the dissolution of the monasteries, after which Church representatives became a minority in the upper Chamber, and in 1847 the number of bishops in the House of Lords was capped at 26. The situation has not been reviewed since. Some on the conservative side of the argument will say that the fact that the arrangement is so old is reason in itself to protect and not challenge it, but we are talking about our democratic constitution; it is not good enough to leave untouched and unreviewed an arrangement that is so obviously out of touch with our times.
The time is right for a review. We first need to identify the mores, attitudes and norms of the society in which we live and which our Parliament is meant to govern. Everyone will admit that they have changed remarkably, even in our lifetime. In the 1950s, one might have been able to describe England or Scotland as a Christian country, but that is no longer the case. In the last British social attitudes survey, 52% of the population identified themselves as non-religious, and a further 9% did not answer the question, so the number of people who identify as religious is getting towards a third of the population these days. Within that, only 12% of people say that they identify with the Church of England—and the Church says that only 1% of the population are active in the Church, in the sense of attending services and being part of it in any normal sense. Clearly, there is a great disjunction between the type of country we are and whether the Church should continue to have this privileged and separate representation at the heart of our constitution.
I am not saying—I repeat this point—that it is wrong for people of faith to be involved in our public life and public discourse, and to be representatives in Parliament. I am saying, however, that it is clearly wrong that one Church and one institution in our country has guaranteed and automatic representation at the heart of our governing arrangements. After all, we do not apply that to any other section of society. We do not say that university vice-chancellors, representatives of the royal colleges of medicine or any other part of society should appoint Members to the House of Lords, and we certainly do not say that any other Church or religious group should, so why is this anomaly allowed to persist?
In this debate, we will necessarily engage with the wider context, on two fronts. First, we will invariably get into a debate about the general role of Church and state, and whether the time has come to disestablish the Church of England and have a proper separation of powers, so that we have secular arrangements for our governance. Some time ago, there were plenty of examples of established Churches—indeed, the Anglican Church was established in many other countries—but over time disestablishment has taken place, and I submit that it has been to the benefit of both Church and state. Demonstrably, the state has continued to be there, without being subject to partisan interests, and the Church has been freed from the responsibility, and has been better able to play the role it should in debates taking place among the population: the role of our social and moral conscience.
We can point to no example of the disestablishment of a Church being anything other than beneficial. No one would consider going backwards to re-establish a Church that has been disestablished. That said, there are plenty of examples of established Churches that do not have privileged or guaranteed representation in the legislature. Again, the UK is exceptional in that regard. We need a wider debate about the role of the Church of England in our diverse, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, non-faith society, but that is not germane to the argument about representation in the House of Lords. We could remove the Church of England’s representation in the House of Lords without disestablishing the Church of England.
The other argument that we get into is the general question of Lords reform. I took part in a radio discussion on this issue this morning, and one caller asked why we were even talking about bishops in the House of Lords, because we should have been talking about having an unelected second Chamber. To some extent, I agree, but I think the bishops’ presence in the House of Lords is a good place to start, because in many ways it is a double affront to the notion of democracy. Not only are the bishops not elected by, or accountable to, the public; they are not even scrutinised and subject to the normal appointment mechanisms for the House of Lords. They are completely separate from that, so if we want to talk about the balance between elected and appointed representatives, and about the role of scrutiny and transparency, the bishops are the best place to start.
Lords reform has been talked about for so long—certainly for all the time I have been in Parliament, and for many decades. I think it was 113 years ago that the Labour party committed to the abolition of the House of Lords. I say that not to have a go; I simply point out that it has been an intractable debate for a very long period. It is useful to have this debate, and to see whether we can engage on the subject. An electoral contest in the United Kingdom is coming, and parties will have to frame propositions on this matter. I wait to be educated by the shadow spokesperson, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), about His Majesty’s Opposition’s thinking with regard to the upper Chamber, but I note the report published by the Labour party at the end of last year, which talked about having a second Chamber. It did not say how the second Chamber would be elected or appointed, but it talked about a Chamber of the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. I think the presumption is that representatives would be elected in some way. Even within that model, however, there is simply no role or logical place for the Lords Spiritual, so on those grounds, they would have to go.
Hon. Members will hear from the SNP’s Front-Bench spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), about our party’s thinking on this issue, but I should explain why I am engaged in this debate. Of course, my colleagues and I want Scotland to become a politically independent, self-governing country in these islands, and we want a much better, co-operative relationship between the national Governments of Britain. That is something we aspire to, and there is not really any conceivable place for the House of Lords in that arrangement. In many ways, there is a particularly Scottish aspect of this issue, because the bishops represent the Church of England; they do not even represent the Anglican community throughout these islands.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is making a very interesting speech. On a point of curiosity, if the worst were to happen and Scotland became independent, would there be an upper Chamber in its legislature? Is that in the SNP’s plans?
Tommy Sheppard
That would be a matter for the people of Scotland. My party’s proposal is that if we had consent to move forward and become an independent country, a modern, democratic constitution would be written. We would spell out the rights of each citizen and the process of government. That would be when to debate whether it was necessary to have a bicameral Parliament, or whether a single legislative Chamber would suffice. I note that part of the argument in this place is that we need an upper Chamber because the House of Commons makes so many mistakes. That seems an argument for reform of the House of Commons, rather than justification for an unelected Chamber.
There is a particular attitude in Scotland; people look at the House of Lords, and at the role of the Lords Spiritual within it, and see this very much as another country. They see this as part of the rationale for doing something different, and moving forward to become an independent country.
I will wind up in a moment because I want others to have a chance to contribute, but I want to say that we need to continue this debate. It is very much overdue in this place, and I know that the public are with us on that. I gave some figures about how many people identify as non-religious. When we ask people whether the Church of England should have automatic and guaranteed representation in Parliament, we find that the majorities against that arrangement are phenomenal: 68%, including a majority of Conservative voters, say that it cannot and should not continue.
This is a debate whose time has come. We should make time for it in the main Chamber as we go through to the end of the year, in a time slot that I hope—with all respect to the Backbench Business Committee—will allow more colleagues to participate and engage in the discussion. This is something that gives our democracy a bad name, and it does not do any favours for the Church of England.
I will finish by repeating this point: it is so important that people of faith are engaged in public life. I say that as a humanist and an atheist, but I respect everyone’s right to practise their religion and to have their own belief system. I want to see a pluralist, tolerant society where everyone is respected, so, of course, I want people and faith leaders such as bishops to be involved in our public discourse. I agree with many of their statements and arguments and the way in which many of the bishops vote on many topics of the day. I am not saying in any sense that they should be excluded from our parliamentary system, but they should be there on the same basis as every other citizen. They should be subject to the same rules as everyone else. At the end of the day, surely that is what democracy means: everyone is treated fairly and everyone has the ability to hold others to account.
I commend this discussion to the House and I look forward to it continuing as the months go by. Perhaps we will actually see the framing of some policy on this matter, with will feed into the political debate at the election, and we may even see some change. Or perhaps Scotland will become an independent country first—I do not know.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Davies, and to contribute to this debate on behalf of the Opposition. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) on securing the debate and on the vigour with which he pressed his case. I agree with what he said at the outset: there is a high degree of interest in the issue. Thursdays are a tricky day to get colleagues to participate in this place, but in general there is a high degree of interest in this, in the wider issue relating to the House of Lords, and in the even wider issue relating to our constitution. That speaks to his point about having a constitution that has evolved slowly. There is a beauty in this place and its conventions and norms, but when that is tried—and, boy, has it been tried over the past decade—it sometimes starts to be flimsy and a bit weak. It is right that we discuss these issues, and the hon. Member made a good start.
There has been a range of interesting contributions from all sides. I agree with the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) that faith remains a hugely significant part of British life. Last month, my community was really tested when the awful Nottingham attacks happened and, boy, did we lean on our faith community. The right reverend Bishop Paul Williams was a huge support for our community and for its Members of Parliament. We should recognise the anchors and fixed points in the lives we lead, but it is reasonable and—I would argue—necessary to discuss the place of that in a democracy, and particularly in a legislature.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), with characteristic impudence, made a point that I will return to on a number of occasions. I believe the role of the second Chamber is much more important than the constitution of its membership.
I cannot quite agree with what the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) said. It is right we have the debate about whether the Lords Spiritual should be in the House. However, the moment we choose to have people in a political legislature, in which every question can be put to a Division if we so wish, they will take views. Asking people to be in a political environment but not be political worked for the Law Lords before we moved to a Supreme Court, because they had to not prejudge case law, but I do not think that that reads across here. We should expect people to take views. If we did not wish them to, that would be an argument for not having them here at all.
That links to what the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) said. I understand the frustration. He raised a number of debates and even Divisions that might have gone another way without the bishops, just as they might have without any 26 Members. Again, however, I would argue that that is a debate about constitution. If we put those people in that place, they should choose their moments to speak and vote as they wish, and should exercise their judgment in that. I suspect that that is what happened in those cases.
To make a couple of points of my own, as we have heard, there are 26 bishops of the Church of England in the other place, sitting as Lords Spiritual, which is about 3% of the membership of the other place. They have a wide role—a wider role, I would argue, than I do as an individual. They provide spiritual and pastoral support to Members, including reading Prayers at the start of each sitting day, and like other Members they offer their perspectives on the various matters before Parliament, asking questions, speaking in debates, serving on Committees and scrutinising legislation.
There have been times in the debate when there has perhaps been a suggestion that the bishops are an homogeneous group. However, they represent a diversity of opinion within the church and a range of political views, and they have the independence to bring different perspectives to the work they do, informed by their faith and their local, national and international connections. Again, whether or not we choose to have them as part of our legislature in the future, we should recognise the contribution the bishops make to Parliament and thank them for their service. As I say, for us in Nottingham, that has been particularly important in recent weeks.
The other place does a hugely important job. I cannot agree with the point from the hon. Member for Edinburgh East that, in some way, the case for a second Chamber is that we make so many mistakes in this Chamber and, therefore, that the actual issue is us being better. I would say, and I would hope—well, I believe this extends to everybody: I am a human being and I make mistakes all the time. In fact, I have just misspoken in this contribution, and I will make other such mistakes throughout the day. Who knows what they will be?
It is right that we have checks and balances in our democracy that will either curb the worst instincts of politicians or give us the chance to think again. That is a very important thing, and that model is, of course, popular around the world. I think the other place provides exceptionally important scrutiny and balance to the work that we do and enriches the quality of debate.
I also believe that it is possible to strongly hold that view, as I do, but also to recognise the case for reform and to understand that the other place has ballooned in size, as mentioned by the hon. Member for South West Bedforsh—Bedfordshire—another mistake from me there, Mr Davies. It has 777 Members, and I would argue that it is not sustainable at that size. Having a larger unelected Chamber than elected Chamber—a larger upper House than lower House—is, I believe, unique among bicameral Parliaments.
The next Government, whoever and whenever that might be, will have to grasp this issue. It is about the second Chamber, but it is also about maintaining, developing and sustaining public confidence in our democracy in general, and that is part of my quibble with this debate.
Alex Burghart
I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me—I may be pre-empting what he is about to say—but what is the Labour party’s position on bishops in the House of Lords?
Alex Norris
Well, the hon. Gentleman has not yet given me the chance to finish. I tempted him into a flourishing drive, and my slip cordon is, I suspect, better than the one the England team is operating today.
My major quibble with this debate is that we should not be pulling out a single element—in this case, a cohort of 3%—and making a single analysis of its merits or otherwise. It must be a fuller debate about the entire Chamber. However, that in itself is a smaller part of a wider conversation about our entire democracy. What are we seeking to do at what level? That is, at the national, regional, local, and parish and town council level. That cannot just be a debate among politicians; we have to let the public in.
I know that the Minister is well briefed enough to know where the Labour party stands on this matter at the moment: we have argued for a smaller second Chamber, and we have argued that we should use that as an opportunity to better recognise and involve all our nations and regions in our democracy. However, we are on a journey to the next general election; we have an important democratic staging post coming among our political parties. The Minister will see the full platform when he is ready for the general election, and I say to him gently that it can be any day he wants.
Alex Burghart
The hon. Gentleman is very generous to give way again. It is interesting to hear him talk about a big debate on the future of the constitution and about the involvement of everyone. If his party was to present plans for a reformed upper Chamber, would it be prepared to put those to a referendum of the people of this country?
Alex Norris
The hon. Gentleman tempts me to read the future. I am afraid that I will disappoint him. We have not finished our process of policymaking. The Government are hiding from the public—it seems like they intend to do that for a long time, and we understand why—but if the hon. Gentleman wishes for a quicker answer, he can give the public what they want, which is their chance to have their say on his Government.
Another issue that is hugely important for what we can do now and today—I hope to hear a little from the Minister on it—is that we know that our communities want greater power and control over their lives. A very important and significant degree of consensus has emerged across the political parties, and across the Chambers, over greater regional devolution. At the moment, we have an asymmetric settlement whereby some are in and some are out, and I hope to hear from the Minister his desire to improve and to move at a quicker pace on that. I depart from the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), the Front Bencher for the Scottish nationalists, in that it is not my goal to hoard power in this place so that I might one day get a chance to sit where the Minister does and get all those nice levers to pull. That is not my desire in politics at all. I am here for devolution. I am here because I want to put the tools and resources into my community so that local leaders can shape our economy, shape our place and make it somewhere where everybody has access to the best opportunities.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) both on initiating the debate and on the manner in which he spoke, which was non-partisan and direct to his point. Despite what I will say in the debate, I have the greatest respect for the humanists in the United Kingdom. I respect their values and the work they do. I know that there are members of the hon. Gentleman’s APPG on both sides of the House, because this is an issue that cuts across party lines, as we have seen this afternoon.
The hon. Gentleman was right in saying that we ought to be having these constitutional debates. We ought to have them in every generation. We have had them in many generations, certainly over the past 400 years. In Cromwell’s day, the bishops were removed from the House of Lords, to be brought back under the Restoration 20 years later. In the 1840s, there was a groundswell of movement to disestablish the Church of England; that then faded away. Gladstone started off as an ardent supporter of the established Church, only to change his position 20 years later, based on what he had seen in Ireland. In around 1929, the Church of England itself toyed with the idea of disestablishment, in response to the Houses of Parliament having voted down its Book of Common Prayer, which Parliament deemed to be too Catholic in its tastes. Therefore, this is a debate that we have had over and over again, and it is right that we should return to it, because nothing in the British constitutional system is automatically eternal. The case has to be made again and again for the way in which we do things. And, over time, things have changed.
[Mr Virendra Sharma in the Chair]
The hon. Gentleman referred to the pre-democratic feudal past, from which the Church emerged. Indeed it did. The Church in his country, his nation—Scotland—and in mine is older than the kingdom of Scotland; it is older than the kingdom of England. There were priests and churches before there was a king of all Scotland or a king of all England. I urge him not to be totally down on the pre-democratic feudal past. It was that past that also gave us Parliaments, law, the jury system, currency, local government and many other things. Not everything that emerges from that time is inherently bad—I used to be a teacher of medieval history.
The question that we are addressing is, how strong is the case for change? I was particularly drawn to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) about priorities. I will disappoint the hon. Member for Edinburgh East when I say that I have not come to Westminster Hall to announce that it is Government policy to disestablish the Church of England. The hon. Member will recognise that, although some people feel very strongly about this subject, their numbers are quite small, the challenges the country faces are very great and the time before the next general election is increasingly short. So this issue is not something the Government will be engaging in—certainly not in this Parliament.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh East rather cheekily raised the parallel with Iran. I say “cheekily” because, although I would share his concerns if the Archbishop of Canterbury controlled the BBC, the courts, the military and the selection of MPs, that is not the case in the United Kingdom.
Martin Docherty-Hughes
I will ask the same question that I asked the spokesperson for the official Opposition. The 23 bishops of the Anglican Church sitting in the upper House have no moral or theological authority in Scotland, Northern Ireland or, indeed, Wales. Does the Minister think they should participate in legislation that impacts those three nations of the Union?
Alex Burghart
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the point, which he has made several times in the debate. The truth is that we remain the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It remains the case that we have, on certain issues, a Westminster Parliament, which has an upper and a lower House. Members of the upper House are entitled to vote, just as, I might add, Members of the SNP are entitled to vote on certain issues that affect only England, and I have observed them so doing on a number of occasions. I know that the hon. Gentleman wishes not to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. However, the people of his country chose otherwise in a once-in-a-generation referendum.
While we are on the subject, I have heard the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) say a couple of times that the SNP will have nothing to do with the unelected House of Lords. That is the SNP’s prerogative, and the SNP is entitled to take that position, but I do think there is something rather sad about it, because the people of Scotland chose to stay in the United Kingdom, and the House of Lords remains part of the constitution of this kingdom. The SNP has deliberately chosen not to represent its views in the upper House, and that is unfortunate; it is a narrow view that is depriving SNP voters in Scotland of a say in the upper Chamber.
Neil Coyle
Does the Minister’s sadness on that issue extend to those who seek to gag Church leaders from speaking about immigration? I am unaware of a nativity story that includes an innkeeper telling Mary and Joseph to take their donkey to Rwanda.
Alex Burghart
The hon. Gentleman specialises in jokes of poor taste. The Government certainly do not seek to gag bishops in any way. I take the view that I think he takes, which is that Members of the House of Lords should be free to talk about any issue that comes before them—even when I disagree with them. Obviously, my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) takes a different view on that. I think it is important that people who sit in the Lords can speak their minds on any issue that comes before that House.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh East raised points about how there was special pleading for the bishops in the Lords in one or two areas on privileges. As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire pointed out, while there is a custom and a convention, these are not rules. Indeed, the customs and conventions are often more honoured in the breach than the observance.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh East mentioned party blocs. Again, what he said is not quite the case. Bishops are not consulted as a party bloc on new legislation before it is tabled, they are not recognised by officials as a party grouping and nor do they get a separate meeting with the Bill makers. That argument does not quite work.
On the code of conduct, although it is true that there is a slightly different code of conduct for bishops, that is also the case for Ministers of the Crown and Members who are employees of non-departmental public bodies. I do not quite follow the hon. Gentleman’s arguments there.
The hon. Gentleman talked, quite rightly, about how the social mores of society have changed, and they have. The position of the bishops has also changed over time. The arguments he will hear bishops advocate today are very different from those he would have heard 50 or 100 years ago. Do bishops today reflect society? I think the hon. Gentleman said 14% of people in the United Kingdom are Anglicans. Only 3% of the Members of the House of Lords are Anglican bishops. If one wanted to go down that route—I am not encouraging anyone to so do—one would say that the Anglicans were under-represented.
I know that the point the hon. Gentleman was actually making was a serious one about the ex officio status of Members of the House of Lords. Going forward, that is fertile ground for discussion, and I thought we were in the foothills of that serious discussion. However, the hon. Member for Glasgow North chose to make this a bigger debate about the House of Lords in totality, and he and I have had that debate a couple of times.
I was trying to tease out SNP Members’ position on an upper Chamber, should they get independence. I think I got three different answers. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East said that that will be decided as and when; the hon. Member for Glasgow North said we should abolish the upper House; and the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire said he would like to see an elected upper Chamber—
Alex Burghart
The hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire says from a sedentary position that he would like to see an elected upper Chamber here. Let us address that point. From the Conservative party’s perspective, the problem with an elected upper Chamber is that all the experience that people bring to the House of Lords—people who do not wish to be part of a political group and who have perhaps come to a stage in their career where they do not want to stand for election—would be lost. That would be a terrible shame, very much to the detriment of democracy in this country. A challenging and revising Chamber needs to be a Chamber of all the talents. The best way to get that is by having the system we currently have and making sure that people who would ordinarily not find their way into an elected House can have a stake and a place in our democracy.
Mr Sharma, I think the hon. Member for Edinburgh East would like to say a few words to sum up, so I will sit down.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Burghart Excerpts(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
The Government continue to deliver on our commitment to get maximum value for taxpayers’ money in public spending. The Cabinet Office is one of the engines of efficiency in government. In the most recent financial year for which we have the data, the Cabinet Office, working with colleagues across Whitehall and the cross-Government functions, saved the British taxpayer £3.4 billion, a record we are proud of.
Richard Burgon
It is not just the lies by the former Prime Minister that have damaged trust in our politics; the contracts handed out to Tory friends and donors through VIP lanes did great damage too, yet the Government last week voted down attempts to shut down VIP lanes for good. No doubt Tory donors are rubbing their hands with glee, but with polls showing three quarters of the public are worried about corruption in Government, does the Minister not agree that the refusal to shut down VIP lanes for good will simply add to these grave concerns?
Alex Burghart
Last week we debated the Procurement Bill. I was very sorry not to see the hon. Gentleman in his place at the time, but if he had been present on that day he would have heard us say that the Bill prevents VIP lanes.
Scott Benton
I am sure the Minister is aware of the recent report stating that up to £7 billion of taxpayers’ money is squandered on so-called woke projects, including an Arts Council programme on unlearning whiteness. My constituents would argue that this money is far better spent on frontline services such as our NHS. I am sure the Minister agrees, so will he update the House on what steps he is taking to eliminate such appalling waste and to ensure every penny of taxpayer money is well spent?
Alex Burghart
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point about the need for us to ensure every pound of taxpayers’ money is spent appropriately, and he will have heard or read the Health Secretary’s comments in March, when he wrote to the health community saying:
“I would ask that you, as a member of the wider health family, now review whether your organisation is getting value for money from your diversity and inclusion memberships and, if not, consider any steps that you could take to address that”.
Andrew Selous
Central London is a very expensive place in which to employ civil servants, and it is expensive for them to live in central London, so what are we doing to allow all parts of the United Kingdom to have the civil service based in their areas, particularly smaller towns, not just large ones, and across the UK—not just in the north, but across the whole of the UK?
Alex Burghart
My hon. Friend makes a good point. We are the Government who committed to relocating 22,000 civil servants from London to the regions by 2030, and we are making excellent progress on that. We have already achieved half that number, and the other day I was pleased to be in Sheffield opening our new policy unit, which brings people together, and not just entry-level civil servants, but the senior managers and decision makers who are going to inform the decisions that drive government in the future.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Has the Minister been looking at the evidence given by George Osborne and Oliver Letwin? I think they were here briefly on an old Etonian work experience scheme, but the evidence they have been giving is a great revelation about what went on in Cabinet and at the highest levels of Government Departments. Will he look and learn?
Several hon. Members rose—
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Am I standing? My goodness, does the Pope wear red socks?
On value for money, what recent discussions have there been with our European counterparts to ease the cost of living by removing the costly Northern Ireland protocol measures on admin and accountancy for small and medium-sized business, and will the hon. Gentleman undertake to resume discussions if they are not ongoing?
Alex Burghart
The Windsor framework made significant progress and took a substantial burden off businesses, but I believe conversations are ongoing and if the hon. Gentleman has any particular questions he would like to bring to my attention, I will be very happy to have a conversation with him.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
Thank you; good morning, Mr Speaker.
I frequently stand at this Dispatch Box and ask the Minister about value for taxpayers’ money, because his Department is responsible for making sure that every penny is treated with the respect it deserves, especially during the cost of living crisis. With that in mind, can he give us an official estimate of the total cost of fraud to the UK across all sectors in 2022?
Alex Burghart
We are engaged in a constant battle against fraud. We do so with colleagues across Whitehall, and particularly in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury. I look forward to the right hon. Lady’s next question.
Angela Rayner
I thank the Minister for that non-answer, but the public deserve to know. While he ducks and dives the question, I have discovered the answer. At a conference in Portsmouth last week, the UK fraud costs measurement committee distributed hard copies of its new report with a fresh new estimate: £219 billion is lost each year as a result of fraud. That is equivalent to this year’s entire central Government running costs budget for health, defence and policing put together. The figure does not even include covid fraud. Can he tell me how much of that money he has clawed back?
Alex Burghart
We have established the Public Sector Fraud Authority to clamp down on fraud. As a former DWP Minister, I assure the right hon. Lady that this Government go after fraud wherever it is found. Every time we find new opportunities for fraud, we come forward with new means of clamping down on them. We are a Government committed to efficiency, which we are delivering. As the right hon. Lady will have heard me say in answer to the first question this morning, the Cabinet Office, in the most recent financial year for which figures are available, delivered £3.4 billion-worth of savings to the British taxpayer. That is work we will continue to do.
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
Nominations are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) will know, taken on merit. The criteria that we use are regularly reported to Government, with our most recent report on the operation of the honours system published last month. We are confident that the process for honours selection, including adequate probity and propriety checks, is proportionate and robust and that all due process is followed.
John Penrose
Does the Minister agree that as proven by recent controversies, the system must be transparently meritocratic, so that it is crystal clear that everybody receiving an honour legitimately deserves it? Now that we have introduced a points-based immigration system to choose the best and the brightest from around the world to live here in Britain, should we consider a similar points-based system to choose this country’s brightest and best to receive honours in future, too?
Alex Burghart
My hon. Friend is too modest to mention that he came up with this idea some time ago, and it is one that we have considered, but it is not one that we will be taking forward at this moment in time. We go to great lengths to ensure that the process remains transparent, and he can read the most recent report, which was published last month. It is essential that we ensure that the committees that make the considerations around the honours system can do so and can report to this place and to the public. While I am aware that he would like us to go further, we do not believe it necessary to uproot the entire system. We want to ensure that the honours system represents people from the length and breadth of the country.
Kerry McCarthy
The Prime Minister insists that he was only following convention when he waved through Boris Johnson’s honours list. It should be obvious to anyone that this former dishonourable Member—a man who will not even be allowed back on to the estate without an escort—should not be doling out honours. Would a stronger, more principled Prime Minister not have recognised that any convention that allows such a man to install his discredited cronies as peers might need changing, rather than blindly following?
Alex Burghart
The hon. Lady knows that there is a long-standing convention from 1895 that outgoing Prime Ministers have a resignation honours list. To put it in plain language for her, just because that gentleman has been found against in this House, it does not mean that the people who were put forward in his resignation honours list are without merit.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
My Cabinet colleagues and I have frequent conversations about a range of issues, with a range of colleagues. To the question that the hon. Lady is pushing on, she will have heard me say that there is a long-standing convention, under successive Governments, that outgoing Prime Ministers can draw up a resignation list.
Marion Fellows
I can now say this without being told off, as was the case a year ago this month: the disgraced, dishonest and serial-lying Boris Johnson should categorically not be given any resignation honours list—period. What steps is the Minister taking to rescind this democratic outrage? If he is not taking any, does he agree with Parliament’s judgment on Monday, given that he chose to abstain on the vote?
Alex Burghart
The list is not being rescinded. It has gone to the sovereign and has been approved.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The failed London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey has been given a life peerage in Boris Johnson’s list, despite his “Jingle and Mingle” 2020 Christmas party. Does the Minister agree that someone who has failed to be elected on three occasions and flouted the laws that the rest of us stuck to during lockdown should not be offered a life peerage?
Alex Burghart
The honourable gentleman in question, as the hon. Lady will know, was also a very long-standing member of the London Assembly, and was successfully elected on a number of occasions to fill that role. Obviously, reports of the party in question are unacceptable. We condemn that event, but as she will have heard me say to her colleague, the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), the list has gone to the sovereign and been approved.
Kirsty Blackman
There is a bit of unedifying silliness in the Chamber this morning. We are absolutely beside ourselves that we seemingly cannot do anything about this, and the Government are not taking any responsibility. Just because something has been convention since 1985 does not mean that we should continue doing it. If the antics of the dishonourable member for the Chiltern hundreds were not bad enough, convention now dictates that the 49-day former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), who crashed the economy, which directly contributed to the mortgage rate rises that people are struggling with, will also get to make nominations. Why is even more power and privilege being awarded to those who have caused untold misery and hardship?
Alex Burghart
I refer the hon. Lady to the answer that I gave a few moments ago.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
We know the frustration that my hon. Friend’s constituents, and indeed all constituents, feel when they are kept waiting on helplines. Departmental helplines are not managed or run centrally, and therefore each Department is responsible for its own helplines and for response times and waiting times. However, I know His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, for instance, has recognised that its customer services have not been good enough recently and is taking steps to improve them.
Mr Hollobone
With two thirds of HMRC staff working from home, and with HMRC taking more than 20 minutes, on average, to answer the phone, HMRC has now shut down the busy self-assessment helpline over the summer. Will my hon. Friend take action, together with His Majesty’s Treasury, to address the presently appalling level of customer service at HMRC?
Alex Burghart
I am sure my colleagues in HMRC will have heard my hon. Friend’s comments.
Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)
I return to the issue of nominations into the other place. Is the Minister aware that 27 members of the Lords donated £50 million to his party and that one in 10 Tory peers have given more than £100,000 to his party? Is that all just an unfortunate coincidence, or are we seeing a return to cash for honours? Would it not be simple just to say that nobody who makes donations to political parties can receive an honour in the future? Would that not be the simplest way of dealing with this utter scandal?
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
We all remember the cash for honours scandal that happened under the hon. Gentleman’s party’s tenure, and we all know how many union barons are barons.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Ind)
What steps are the Government taking to improve the co-ordination and collaboration between different Departments on addressing the mental health needs of our veterans?
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Opportunity has been squandered in the way the Government are disposing of public land. Bootham Park Hospital closed seven and half years ago, but it is still vacant despite developers coming and going, meaning that opportunities for creatives and businesses, as well as for residential use for local people, are being denied. Will the Government undertake a cross-governmental look at public land to ensure that it is used for public good, not profit?
Alex Burghart
I cannot comment on the specifics of the case that the hon. Lady raises, but I can tell her that the Government Property Agency, which is based in the Cabinet Office, delivers enormous efficiencies for taxpayers by rationalising the estate and using some of the savings to create modern working environments, which create greater productivity among our civil servants.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
May I take a slightly contrary view about working from home to the one we heard from the Front Bench just now? While I fully recognise that working with other people in an office is constructive from a teamwork and creative point of view, working from home has advantages, including saving travel time and, on occasion, enabling people to concentrate more on the job. Will my right hon. and hon. Friends not take too prescriptive a view of working from home, and encourage TWATism? A TWAT, Mr Speaker, is somebody who works in the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
Following the question asked by the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), may I press Ministers in relation to HMRC and Department for Work and Pensions phone services? I have constituents who are waiting over an hour to speak to DWP call centre staff, who are then cut off. The pressure is partly caused by more and more people relying on DWP and HMRC services. Having been cut off, they subsequently receive letters saying their benefits have been revoked or they are expected to repay taxes, without having been able to talk to any officials in those call centres. It cannot be right for the Minister to say that it is for those Departments to deal with the problem. The Cabinet Office needs to have a co-ordinating role to resolve these ongoing problems. It is simply not good enough.
Alex Burghart
The hon. Gentleman will have heard me say already that it is a matter for those Departments. It is their responsibility, but I know they are taking those responsibilities very seriously. DWP and HMRC are working hard to get the waiting times down.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
As the Procurement Bill goes through Parliament, what steps is my hon. Friend taking to ensure that hostile nations are not installing equipment in our networks and other facilities?
Alex Burghart
We were delighted to announce last week, during Report stage of the Procurement Bill, the creation of a new security unit within the Cabinet Office. It will identify high-risk vendors, who will be prevented from supplying things like surveillance equipment to certain parts of the public estate. I am very proud of our record in this space.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
We have now passed midsummer’s day, the longest day of the year, and still the children are at school. What is the impact on our civil service and our services of an outdated system where children in this country go on holiday when half the summer—very often the best part of it—is over? Can we have a change and look at how we time our summer holidays for children?
Procurement Bill: Consultation on Draft Regulations
Alex Burghart Excerpts(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
One in every three pounds of public money—over £300 billion a year—is spent on public procurement. By improving the way public procurement is regulated, the Government can save the taxpayer money and drive benefits across every region of the country.
Following the UK’s exit from the EU, we now have an opportunity to develop and implement a new procurement regime. The Procurement Bill will help deliver the Prime Minister’s promise to grow the economy by creating a simpler and more transparent system that will deliver better value for money, reducing costs for business and the public sector.
The Government want to make it easier for small businesses to work with the public sector by ripping up unnecessary rules and tackling late payment in the supply chain. We will ensure that all public bodies consider small and medium-sized enterprises when designing their procurements.
Following wide-ranging public consultation and stakeholder engagement, and close working with colleagues in the devolved Administrations, we have brought forward legislative proposals to establish the new regime. These measures and the training we will roll out to support them will deliver greater value for the public purse, from huge infrastructure projects to services by local councils.
In support of the Bill, which last week completed Third Reading in this place, I am launching a public consultation on the draft implementing regulations that will form part of the new regime. This consultation, which is highly technical and not seeking views on policy development, will be split into two parts, with the first part of the consultation remaining open until 28 July. The first part of the consultation, announced today, focuses on policy areas that require specific detail, such a calculation of thresholds, or lists of services or organisations, in secondary legislation. The forthcoming second part will address the transparency provisions and notices that will be used by contracting authorities to fulfil their legal requirements under the Bill. The second part will also include information on the proposed approach to transitional arrangements for procurements already underway at the time that the new regime enters into force and the position on other legislation that will need to be amended in order for the full provisions of the Bill to take effect. I expect to launch the second part in July.
The consultation we are publishing today, and laying in Parliament, gives everyone an opportunity to help shape public procurement for the future and I wish to encourage all involved in public procurement to have their say.
[HCWS859]
Procurement Bill [Lords]
Alex Burghart ExcerptsTuesday 13th June 2023
(10 months, 4 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Procurement Act 2023 View all Procurement Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 13 June 2023 - large print - (13 Jun 2023)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 1—Removal from the procurement supply chain of physical surveillance equipment produced by companies subject to the National Intelligence Law of the People’s Republic of China—
“(1) Within six months of the passage of this Act, the Secretary of State must publish a timeline for the removal from the Government’s procurement supply chain of physical surveillance equipment produced by companies subject to the National Intelligence Law of the People’s Republic of China.
(2) The Secretary of State must lay the timeline before Parliament.”
New clause 9—Application of this Act to procurement by NHS England—
“(1) Omit sections 79 and 80 of the Health and Care Act 2022.
(2) For the avoidance of doubt, the provisions of this Act apply to procurement by NHS England.”
This new clause includes the NHS under this Act and procurement by NHS England under the Health and Care Act 2022.
New clause 10—Tax transparency—
“(1) This section applies to any covered procurement for a public contract with an estimated value of £5 million or over.
(2) When assessing tenders under section 19 or awarding a contract under section 41 or 43, a contracting authority must require the submission of a tax report where a supplier is a multi-national supplier.
(3) Where a multi-national supplier fails to submit a tax report, a contracting authority must exclude the supplier from participating in, or progressing as part of, the competitive tendering procedure.
(4) Subject to subsection (5), a contracting authority that enters into a contract with a multi-national supplier must publish a copy of the tax report—
(a) if the contract is a light touch contract, before the end of the period of 120 days beginning with the day on which the contract is entered into;
(b) otherwise, before the end of the period of 30 days beginning with the day on which the contract is entered into.
(5) Where a copy of a contract is by virtue of regulations under section 95 published under section 53(3) on a specified online system, the tax report relating to that contract must be published on the same specified online system—
(a) if the contract is a light touch contract, before the end of the period of 120 days beginning with the day on which the contract is entered into;
(b) otherwise, before the end of the period of 30 days beginning with the day on which the contract is entered into.
(6) A ‘multi-national supplier’ is a supplier with two or more enterprises that are resident for tax purposes in two or more different jurisdictions.
(7) A ‘tax report’ means a report setting out—
(a) the income booked in the UK,
(b) the profit before tax attributable to the UK,
(c) the corporate income tax paid on a cash basis in the UK,
(d) the corporate income tax accrued on profit/loss attributable to the UK, and
(e) any other information specified in regulations under section 95
for the multinational supplier.
(8) A Minister of the Crown may by regulations amend this section for the purpose of changing the financial threshold.”
This new clause would require large multinational corporations bidding for a public contract to provide information about their Income booked in the UK, their profit before tax attributable to the UK, their corporate income tax paid on a cash basis in the UK and their corporate income tax accrued on profit/loss attributable to the UK, and that information to be published.
New clause 11—Public interest—
“(1) Where a contracting authority is considering outsourcing public services that are at the time of consideration delivered in-house or where contracts are due for renewal, the contracting authority must demonstrate that they have considered whether outsourcing or re-contracting provides greater public value than direct service provision.
(2) As part of the duty in subsection (1), the contracting authority should demonstrate that it has assessed the potential benefits and impact of outsourcing the service in question against a public sector comparator with assessments being based on criteria to be set by the Secretary of State, including taking a five year consideration of—
(a) service quality and accessibility;
(b) value for money of the expenditure;
(c) implications for other public services and public sector budgets;
(d) resilience of the service being provided;
(e) implications for the local economy and availability of good work in relevant sub-national labour markets;
(f) implications for public accountability and transparency;
(g) effect on employment conditions, terms and standards within the provision of the service to be outsourced and when outsourced;
(h) implications for public sector contributions to climate change and environmental targets;
(i) implications for the equalities policies of the contracting authority and compliance with the public sector equality duty.
(3) The contracting authority and the supplier of the outsourced service must monitor the performance of any contracted service against the public interest test and the stated objectives set by the contracting authority pre-procurement to demonstrate that outsourcing the service in question has not resulted in a negative impact on any of the matters mentioned in subsection (2)(a) to (i).
(4) The Secretary of State must from time to time set budget thresholds for when a public interest test would be required.”
The new clause would create a process to ensure that contracting authorities safeguard the public interest when considering whether or not to outsource or recontract services.
New clause 12—Protection of subcontractors’ payments under construction contracts—
“(1) A project bank account must be established for the purpose of subsections (2) to (4) in accordance with the following requirements—
(a) the account must be set up by the contracting authority and the contractor under a construction contract as joint account-holders;
(b) the monies in the account are held in trust by the contracting authority and contractor as joint trustees;
(c) the contracting authority must deposit in the account all sums becoming due to the beneficiaries and any disputed sums must remain in the account until the dispute is resolved and any retention monies remain in the account until they are released to the beneficiaries;
(d) due payments from the account must be made to all beneficiaries simultaneously; and
(e) the beneficiaries include—
(i) the contractor;
(ii) all subcontractors where the value of each subcontract is at least 1% of the value (excluding VAT) of the construction contract entered into between the contracting authority and the contractor; and
(iii) any other subcontractor which has specifically requested that its payments be discharged through the account.
(2) Subsections (3) and (4) have application to construction contracts having a value in excess of £2 million (excluding VAT).
(3) Not later than 30 days after entering into a construction contract a contracting authority must ensure that a project bank account is in place.
(4) In the event that a contracting authority fails to comply with this subsection the construction contract ceases to be valid and may not be enforced by either party.
(5) The Secretary of State must provide statutory guidance on the operation of project bank accounts to ensure that such operation is standardised amongst all contracting authorities.
(6) Subsections (7) to (10) apply where retention monies are not protected within a project bank account.
(7) The contracting authority must establish a retention deposit account with a bank or building society which fulfils the requirements of subsection (1)(a) and (b).
(8) On each occasion that retention monies are withheld the contracting authority must lodge them within the retention deposit account and maintain a record of the names of each subcontractor having contributed to the withheld monies and the amount of the monies contributed by each.
(9) Subject to subsection (10), not later than 30 days after the date of handover of each subcontracted works at least 50% of the withheld retention monies must be released, and not later than the date which is 12 months from the date of handover of each subcontracted works the balance of the retention monies must be released.
(10) A contracting authority has a right of recourse to subcontractors’ retention monies but such right is limited to any subcontractor which is in default of its subcontract in having delivered works which are defective and in breach of the subcontract.
(11) Paragraphs (9) and (10) also apply where retention monies are protected in a project bank account.
(12) Non-compliance with subsections (6) to (11) renders any entitlement to withhold retention monies in a construction contract or subcontracts of no effect.
(13) Subsections (6) to (12) do not affect the right of any subcontractor to pursue recovery of any outstanding or wrongfully withheld retention monies against its other contracting party.
(14) The Secretary of State must provide statutory guidance on the operation of retention deposit accounts to ensure such operation is standardized amongst all contracting authorities.
(15) Any dispute under this section is referrable to adjudication in accordance with section 108 of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996.
(16) The Secretary of State must carry out a review of the operation of this section within 5 years of it coming into force.
(17) In this section—
“bank” has the meaning given to it in section 2 of the Banking Act 2009;
“building society” has the meaning given to it in section 119 of the Building Societies Act 1986;
“contractor” is the party engaged under a construction contract with a contracting authority;
“construction contract” has the meaning given to it in section 104, Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996;
“handover of each subcontracted works” signifies the date when the works as defined in each subcontract are substantially complete;
“project bank account” is an account set up with a bank or building society which has the requirements listed in subsection (2);
“retention monies” mean a proportion of monies withheld from payments which would otherwise be due under a construction contract, subcontract or any ancillary contract the effect of which is to provide security for the current or future performance by the party carrying out the works;
“subcontract” and “subcontractor” includes sub-subcontracts and sub-subcontractors.”
This new clause ring-fences monies due to subcontractors in construction supply chains through mandating use of project bank accounts and ensuring retention monies are safeguarded in a separate and independent account.
New clause 13—Dependence on high-risk states—
“(1) The Secretary of State must within six months publish a plan to reduce the dependence of public bodies upon goods and services which originate in whole or in part in a country considered by the United Kingdom as a high risk sourcing country.
(2) For the purposes of this section, a country is considered a high risk sourcing country by the United Kingdom if it is defined as either a systemic competitor or a threat in the latest Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy.”
New clause 14—Procurement and human rights—
“(1) A contracting authority may apply a policy under which it does not contract for the supply of goods, services or works from a foreign country or territory based on the conduct of that foreign country or territory relating to human rights, provided that—
(a) the contracting authority has a Statement of Policy Relating to Human Rights, and
(b) that statement of policy is applied consistently and not specifically to any one foreign country or territory.
(2) Within six months of the passage of this Act, the Secretary of State must publish, and lay before Parliament, guidance on the form, content and application of Statements of Policy Relating to Human Rights for the purposes of subsection (1).
(3) Contracting authorities must have regard to the guidance published under subsection (2) when applying a policy in accordance with subsection (1).”
This new clause would enable public authorities to choose not to buy goods or services from countries based on their human rights record. They would not be able to single out individual nations to apply such a policy to, but would have to apply it consistently, and in accordance with guidance published by the Secretary of State.
New clause 16—Eradicating slavery and human trafficking in supply chains—
“(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make such provision as the Secretary of State thinks appropriate with a view to eradicating the use in covered procurement of goods or services that are tainted by slavery and human trafficking.
(2) The regulations may, in particular, include—
(a) provision as to circumstances in which a supplier is excluded from consideration for the award of a contract;
(b) provision as to steps that must be taken by contracting authorities for assessing and addressing the risk of slavery and human trafficking taking place in relation to people involved in procurement supply chains;
(c) provision as to matters for which provision must be made in contracts for goods or services entered into by contracting authorities, including mandating or enabling the use of forensic supply chain tracing.
(3) In this section— “forensic supply chain tracing” is the process of using forensic techniques to track the movement of goods and services through a supply chain; “slavery and human trafficking” has the meaning given by section 54(12) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015; “tainted”: goods or services are “tainted” by slavery and human trafficking if slavery and human trafficking takes place in relation to anyone involved in the supply chain for providing those goods or services.”
New clause 17—Food procurement—
“(1) A public contract which includes the supply of food must include provisions ensuring that the supply of food under that contract—
(a) is aligned with the Eatwell Guide, and
(b) includes options suitable for a plant-based diet.
(2) The ‘Eatwell Guide’ is the policy tool used to define government recommendations on eating healthily and achieving a balanced diet published by Public Health England on 17 March 2016, as updated from time to time.”
This new clause would require public contracts for the supply of food to be aligned with current nutritional guidelines and to include plant-based options.
Amendment 14, in clause 2, page 2, line 15, after “funds,” insert “including the NHS,”.
This amendment includes the NHS in the definition of a public authority for the purposes of this Act.
Government amendments 19 and 20.
Amendment 60, in clause 13, page 10, line 11, at end insert—
“(3A) When the Minister lays the statement before Parliament, the Minister must also lay before Parliament a report which sets out—
(a) the Secretary of State’s assessment of the impact of the statement on meeting environmental and climate targets,
(b) the steps the Secretary of State has taken or intends to take in relation to procurement to support the meeting of those targets.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to explain in a report laid before Parliament the Government’s assessment of the impact of the national procurement policy statement on meeting environmental and climate targets and to set out any intended steps in relation to the meeting of those targets.
Amendment 4, in clause 19, page 13, line 31, at end insert—
“(aa) must disregard any tender from a supplier that does not guarantee the payment of at least the Real Living Wage to all its own employees and contracted staff and those of any sub-contractors;”
This amendment, together with Amendments 5 to 8, is designed to ensure that no public contract can be let unless the supplier guarantees the payment of the Real Living Wage to all those involved in the delivery of the contract.
Amendment 5, in clause 41, page 28, line 26, at end insert—
“(3A) A contracting authority may not award a contract under this section to a supplier that does not guarantee the payment of at least the Real Living Wage to all its own employees and contracted staff and those of any sub-contractors.”
See explanatory statement to Amendment 4.
Amendment 1, in clause 42, page 29, line 14, at end insert—
“(3A) Provision under subsection (1) must not confer any preferential treatment on suppliers connected to or recommended by members of the House of Commons or members of the House of Lords.”
This amendment is intended to prevent the future use of “VIP lanes” for public contracts.
Government amendments 21 to 23.
Amendment 6, in clause 43, page 30, line 3, at end insert—
“(5A) A contracting authority may not award a contract under subsection (1) to a supplier that does not guarantee the payment of at least the Real Living Wage to all its own employees and contracted staff and those of any sub-contractors.”
See explanatory statement to Amendment 4.
Amendment 2, in clause 44, page 30, line 16, at end insert—
“(4) Any Minister of the Crown, Member of Parliament, Member of the House of Lords or senior civil servant involved in recommending a supplier for a contract under section 41 or 43 must make a public declaration to the Cabinet Office of any private financial interest in that supplier within 10 working days.”
This amendment would implement a recommendation by the National Audit Office that any contracts awarded under emergency provisions or direct awards should include transparency declarations.
Amendment 7, in clause 45, page 31, line 6, at end insert—
“(aa) permit the award of a public contract to a supplier that does not guarantee the payment of at least the Real Living Wage to all its own employees and contracted staff and those of any sub-contractors.”
See explanatory statement to Amendment 4.
Government amendments 24 to 30.
Amendment 61, in clause 58, page 40, line 38, leave out paragraph (c).
This amendment would remove provision allowing a contracting authority to have regard to commitments to prevent circumstances giving rise to the application of an exclusion ground from occurring again when considering whether a supplier should be excluded.
Amendment 62, page 40, line 41, leave out paragraph (e).
This amendment would remove provision allowing a contracting authority to have regard to evidence, explanations or factors not specified elsewhere in the clause when considering whether a supplier should be excluded.
Amendment 63, page 41, line 8, leave out subsection (3).
This amendment removes clause 58 (3), which limits the ability of a contracting authority to require whatever evidence is necessary to make their assessment about whether a supplier is reliable.
Government amendments 31 to 50.
Amendment 17, in clause 68, page 49, line 15, at end insert—
“(10A) Within a year of the passage of this Act, the Secretary of State must prepare, publish and lay before Parliament a report on the effectiveness of this section in ensuring prompt payment of small and medium-sized enterprises.
(10B) Not later than 6 months after the report has been laid before Parliament, a Minister of the Crown must make a motion in the House of Commons in relation to the report.”
This amendment would require the Government to report to Parliament on the effectiveness of this section in ensuring prompt payment of SMEs.
Amendment 68, in clause 71, page 51, line 11, at end insert—
“(6A) When a planned procurement notice is published under section 15 or a tender notice is published under section 21, the contracting authority must include a statement of the outcomes which the contract is intended to achieve.
(6B) The contracting authority must commission an independent evaluation of whether each contract delivered the outcomes mentioned in subsection (6A), unless the contract is excluded by regulations under subsection (6D).
(6C) An evaluation under subsection (6B) must—
(a) be performed by an independent body in accordance with UK Government Evaluation Standards, and include a clear recommendation on whether similar further public contracts should be begun, renewed or extended;
(b) be commissioned in time to be completed within six months of contract termination, renewal or extension;
(c) be published in full by the contracting authority immediately it is received from the independent external body.
(6D) The Secretary of State may by regulations specify types of contracts that do not require independent evaluations under subsection (6B).
(6E) Where the independent evaluation under subsection (6B) recommends that similar public contracts should not be begun, extended or renewed, any contracting authority which nonetheless intends to do so must publish its reasons not less than 30 days before the agreement is begun, extended or renewed.”
Government amendments 51 to 55.
Amendment 13, page 78, line 12, leave out clause 119.
Amendment 8, in clause 122, page 82, line 5, at end insert—
“‘Real Living Wage’ means the hourly wage rates for London and for outside London calculated annually by the Resolution Foundation and overseen by the Living Wage Commission (or their successor bodies);”.
This amendment inserts a definition of the Real Living Wage for the purposes of Amendments 4 to 7.
Government amendment 56.
Amendment 64, in schedule 6, page 106, line 7, at end insert
“or an offence under section 86, 88 or 92 of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017.”
This amendment is intended to ensure that the full range of criminal offences for money laundering are properly captured for the purposes of exclusion from public procurement.
Amendment 65, page 106, line 12, leave out “or 6” and insert ”, 6 or 7”.
This amendment includes the failure of commercial organisations to prevent bribery as an offence which is a mandatory exclusion ground.
Amendment 66, page 106, line 14, at end insert—
18A An offence under Schedule 3 of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 (sanctions evasion offences).”
This amendment is intended to make criminal offences for sanctions evasion grounds for mandatory exclusion from public procurement.
Government amendment 57.
Amendment 15, page 110, line 12, at end insert—
“National security
42A A mandatory exclusion ground applies to a supplier if a decision-maker determines that the supplier or a connected person poses a threat to the national security of the United Kingdom.”
This amendment would move national security from among the discretionary exclusion grounds in Schedule 7 to the mandatory exclusion grounds in Schedule 6.
Government amendment 58.
Amendment 18, in schedule 7, page 113, line 2, at end insert—
“1A A discretionary exclusion ground applies to a supplier if a contracting authority determines that a supplier, within a year leading to the date of tender—
(a) has been found by an employment tribunal or court to have significantly breached the rights of an employee or worker engaged or formerly engaged by it with one or more aggravating features, or has admitted to doing so; and
(b) has not conformed with applicable obligations in the fields of environmental, social and labour law established by national law, collective agreements or international environmental, social and labour law provisions; and
(c) has not taken steps to rectify the situation through—
(i) paying or undertaking to pay compensation in respect of any damage caused by the breach of rights; and
(ii) clarifying the facts and circumstances in a comprehensive manner by actively collaborating with any relevant employment tribunal or court process and the parties thereto; and
(iii) taking concrete technical, organisational and personnel measures appropriate to prevent further breaches of rights of a similar kind.
1B In making a decision on whether a discretionary exclusion ground applies to a supplier under paragraph 1A, a contracting authority must—
(a) evaluate the adequacy of any action taken by the supplier in accordance with sub-paragraph (c) of that paragraph, taking into account the gravity and particular circumstances of the breach or breaches of rights, and
(b) make reasonable provision for the employer and the employee or worker concerned to make representations, which may be made by agreement by a trade association or trade union.”
This amendment would give contracting authorities the discretion to exclude suppliers who have significantly and repeatedly breached the rights of staff in the last year unless they have “self-cleansed”.
Amendment 67, page 113, line 17, at end insert—
“Financial and economic misconduct
3A A discretionary exclusion ground applies to a supplier if the decision-maker considers that there is sufficient evidence that the supplier or a connected person has engaged in conduct (whether in or outside the United Kingdom) constituting (or that would, if it occurred in the United Kingdom, constitute) any of the following offences—
(a) an offence under section 327, 328 or 329 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (money laundering offences);
(b) an offence under section 86, 88 or 92 of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017;
(c) an offence under Schedule 3 to the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 (sanctions evasion offences);
(d) an offence under section 2, 3, 4, 6 or 7 of the Fraud Act 2006 (fraud offences);
(e) an offence under section 993 of the Companies Act 2006 (fraudulent trading);
(f) an offence under section 1, 2, 6 or 7 of the Bribery Act 2010 (bribery offences).”
This amendment is intended to allow relevant Ministers and Contracting Authorities the power to exclude suppliers from procurement where they have evidence of financial and economic criminal activity, such as fraud, money laundering, bribery or sanctions evasion, but there has not yet been a conviction by a court.
Amendment 16, page 116, line 6, at end insert—
“Sanctions offences
14A(1) A discretionary exclusion ground applies to a supplier if the decision-maker considers that the supplier or a connected person has engaged in conduct constituting—
(a) An offence established in any regulations made under Part 1 of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018;
(b) An offence established under Part 5 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979.
(2) A discretionary exclusion ground applies to a supplier if the decision-maker considers that there is sufficient evidence that the supplier or a connected person has engaged in conduct outside of the United Kingdom that could result in such an offence being committed if that conduct occurred in the United Kingdom.”
This amendment would create a discretionary exclusion ground where a supplier (or connected person) has violated UK sanctions or export controls, or would have done so if they were in the UK.
Amendment 3, page 116, line 10, at end insert—
“Involvement in forced organ harvesting
14A(1) A discretionary exclusion ground applies to a supplier if a decision-maker determines that the supplier or a connected person has been, or is, involved in—
(a) forced organ harvesting,
(b) unethical activities relating to human tissue, including anything which involves the commission of an offence under sections 32 (prohibition of commercial dealings in human material for transplantation), 32A (offences under section 32 committed outside UK) or 33 (restriction on transplants involving a live donor) of the Human Tissue Act 2004, or under sections 20 (prohibition of commercial dealings in parts of a human body for transplantation) or 20A (offences under section 20 committed outside UK) of the Human Tissue (Scotland) Act 2006, or
(c) dealing in any device or equipment or services relating to conduct mentioned in paragraphs (a) or (b).
(2) “Forced organ harvesting” means killing a person without their consent so that their organs may be removed and transplanted into another person.”
This amendment is designed to give a discretionary power to exclude suppliers from being awarded a public contract who have participated in forced organ harvesting or unethical activities relating to human tissue, including where they are involved in providing a service or goods relating to such activities.
Government amendment 59.
Alex Burghart
It is a genuine honour to take the Procurement Bill through Report stage. As the House will know, this is a major piece of post-Brexit legislation that enables us, for the first time in many decades, to reform our procurement system, to the benefit of contracting authorities, suppliers and taxpayers.
I begin with new clause 15 and amendment 52. We are inserting into the Bill a new clause that allows us to meet the UK’s international obligations on record keeping. We are strengthening record keeping obligations in the Bill to more fully reflect our obligations in both the agreement on Government procurement—the GPA—and the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership. They both require records to be kept for a minimum of three years. New clause 15 sets out the obligation on contracting authorities to
“keep such records as the authority considers sufficient to explain a material decision made for the purpose of awarding or entering into a public contract.”
A material decision is one that requires a contracting authority
“to publish or provide a notice, document or other information in relation to the decision”,
or decisions, that are required to be made under the Bill. Records must be kept for three years from award of, or entry into, a contract—or, if the contract is awarded but not entered into, from the date of the decision not to enter into it.
The primary goal of the Bill is to streamline procurement regulations and ensure the overall efficiency of the system, while avoiding overwhelming businesses and contracting authorities with a multitude of rules and regulations—a point that we will no doubt return to this afternoon. As such, and in line with international requirements, the obligations attach only to the award of, and entry into, contracts; they do not apply to the management stage of a contract.
Information on the management of major contracts will of course be put into the public domain, thanks to the Bill’s considerable transparency obligations. That includes information on key performance indicators, such as performance against them; information on amendments to contracts; and information on contract termination, which will require reporting on performance. The time limit already in the Bill on the duty to maintain records of communications with suppliers is being relocated to sit alongside the new record keeping duty. The record keeping requirement is intended to act as a minimum; contracting authorities may of course keep records for longer, and indeed may be required to do so under other legislation.
Government amendments 24 and 25 change the point at which, under clause 52(1), contracting authorities are required to publish key performance indicators. They will no longer have to do so before entering into a public contract. Instead, there will be a requirement to publish them under proposed new subsection (2A) of clause 52. Clause 53, on contract details notices, provides that the details of KPIs will be specified in regulations under clause 95. That is because it is not possible to publish the KPIs before entering into the public contract, as they arise as part of the process of entering into the contract.
Government amendments 19, 20 and 56 make a necessary technical adjustment to ensure that the City of London Corporation is caught by the Bill in respect of its public sector functions, but not its commercial functions. The Bill is intended to apply to local authorities—clause 2 makes it clear that publicly funded bodies are caught by it—but due to its evolution and structure, the corporation does not operate solely as a local authority. It has significant private sector trading activities—for example, it operates private schools and undertakes property management—that are clearly not intended to be caught by the Bill. Unlike district and county councils, being a local authority is not the corporation’s raison d’être; rather, it has some local authority functions bolted on to its wider organisational functions. Without the amendments to clause 2 and schedule 2, there would be a risk of unintended consequences; the Bill would apply to either all the corporation’s activities, including its commercial activities, or none of them, depending on whether the corporation’s balance of income was derived mainly from its trading activities or from public funds in any one year.
Government amendments 21 to 23 resolve a drafting inconsistency between clause 19, which governs the award of contracts following a competitive procedure, and clause 43, which has rules allowing a contracting authority to switch to direct award if no suitable tender was received in a competition. Under clause 19, a tender may be disregarded in a competition if it breaches a procedural requirement set by the contracting authority—for example, if it is submitted late or is over its word count. Abnormally low tenders can also be disregarded, provided the tenderer has advance notification and the chance to respond, pursuant to subsections (4) and (5).
The changes proposed to clause 43 will ensure that only a material breach of procedural requirements will render a tender unsuitable: for example, being 10 words over the set count should not result in an unsuitable tender permitting direct award. Abnormally low tenders cannot be deemed unsuitable unless the supplier has had an opportunity to demonstrate that it will be able to perform the contract for the price offered, as is required under clause 19.
Moving on to amendment 59, paragraph 2(3) of schedule 10 inserts new section 14(5A) into the Defence Reform Act 2014. The DRA, and the Single Source Contract Regulations 2014 made under it, make provision for the pricing of defence contracts to procure goods, works and services that are not let competitively and meet the necessary criteria, including a financial threshold. New section 14(5A) is being introduced to address uncertainty about when an agreement for new goods, works and services should be regarded as an amendment to an existing contract within the scope of the DRA regime, and when it should be regarded as a new contract in its own right. The proposed new subsection currently addresses the situation by identifying two specific categories of existing contract not subject to the DRA regime that, when amended on a non-competed basis to add further goods, works or services, would become subject to that regime.
A third such category of contract not currently addressed by proposed section 14(5) has subsequently come to light. That category covers a single source contract that was below the financial threshold set by the SSCRs that is subsequently amended to add new goods, works and services that take it above that threshold. Amendment 59 will ensure that such contracts are brought within the regulation-making power. A hypothetical example would be a contract that was let competitively for £6 million a few years ago and was not subject to the regulations, where proposed section 14(5) and section 14(3)(b) —which excludes contracts let through competitions—did not apply, and a single source amendment was subsequently placed a few years later for £10 million of new work. That kind of amendment is referred to in section 14(5), and under the proposed new regulations, it would be treated as a new contract for the purposes of the regulations. Under the current wording of schedule 10, the agreement covering the new work would fall under the regulations.
Amendments 38, 32, 36, 37, 39 to 51, 57 and 58 significantly strengthen the exclusions and debarment provisions for exclusion on national security grounds. As the Bill stands, placing a supplier on the debarment list on national security grounds will make it excludable from all contracts within the scope of the Bill. That means that the supplier will be identified as posing a threat to the national security of the UK, but contracting authorities will have discretion as to whether they exclude the supplier in each particular procurement. Having engaged with colleagues in the House and reflected on their concerns, I can confirm that the Government are content to further strengthen those provisions. The new amendments will enable a Minister of the Crown to take a stronger approach in response to a specific risk profile of a particular supplier and make targeted decisions about whether the debarment should be mandatory for particular types of contracts, depending on the nature of the risk.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I thank the Minister for the work he has been doing on the Bill, and for listening to colleagues—there is more work to be done, but we are certainly moving in the right direction. There is an issue about dual use stuff: we are talking about national security, but for technology such as cellular modules in Government cars that may or may not be being used by competitor nations to listen in to conversations, it is not just a narrow definition that we should be worried about, but a rather more expansive definition of some of the risks posed by that technology and where it is placed in either very specific national security contexts or, more broadly, among things that are critical to our national infrastructure.
Alex Burghart
I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks, and for the constructive dialogue that we have had while preparing for today’s debate. As he hopefully knows from what we have already said on this subject—he will hear it again in what I am about to say—the structure that we are putting in place will be able to make exactly that sort of assessment.
If a supplier poses an unacceptable risk in relation to certain goods, such as network communications equipment, the Minister will be able to enter on the debarment list that that supplier is an excluded supplier for contracts for the supply or support of that type of equipment, but that will not necessarily mean that the supplier will be excluded from all other types of contract. Similarly, the entry may also—or as an alternative—stipulate that the supplier is excluded from contracts relating to certain locations or sites, or contracts let by certain contracting authorities. That removes discretion from contracting authorities regarding exclusions where a supplier poses a threat for particular contracts, thereby reducing the risk of a supplier being allowed to participate in a procurement when they should not be.
By allowing this type of targeted and proportionate approach, we can direct that suppliers must be excluded where the risks are unacceptable, and allow contracting authorities to make appropriate choices where a risk is manageable—for example, if a supplier is providing pencils or plastic furniture. We think that approach to national security exclusions is both proportionate and robust, and will allow us to effectively counter the risk posed by some suppliers, including those that many in this House are concerned about.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
The Minister has said that he wants a proportionate response and I take that point. I also thank him for the talks we have had about this issue, which is the basis of my support for new clause 1. However, one thing he has not yet addressed is the timescale. Clearly, a lot of kit that we would regard as suspicious under the Bill needs to be removed. Can he give some indication of what sort of timescale we will need to remove it?
Alex Burghart
I thank my right hon. Friend for the constructive conversations that we have had in getting ready for today’s debate. He is slightly pre-empting some remarks that I will come to later. I hope that he saw the announcement that the Government made the other day. It is in the nature of the work that we are doing that, first, we wish to remove devices and components that pose a security risk to sensitive sites—I will say more about the timescale for that later. Secondly, we intend through the use of the unit and the provisions in the Bill to prevent similar devices and components from entering our sites in future. It is a two-part process: first, get rid of what is already there and, secondly, prevent other such services from coming in in future.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
The Minister has mentioned sensitive sites. I do not quite understand what that phrase means—I am hoping that we will get a proper explanation in due course—but what I would observe is that, as far as I can see, every single Government site is by nature and definition sensitive. The Department for Work and Pensions is very sensitive because any disruption of its payments would render the UK in a terrible state. Is it not the case that all Departments of central Government are by nature sensitive sites and, therefore, should take upon themselves the reality that they must all rid themselves of these things?
Alex Burghart
My right hon. Friend makes a good point, and I thank him for his constructive engagement with me and the Minister for the Cabinet Office on this issue. We understand and hear his concerns about sensitive and non-sensitive sites—not least, we understand his view that the definition could incorporate a broader range of assets, where information gleaned on the movement of officials and politicians could be detrimental to our national security. We will continue to work on that issue with him, both in today’s debate and in the Lords debate that will follow it. I am sure that we can reach a sensible conclusion that will be to his satisfaction.
Bob Seely
If I remember correctly, in January, the security services took apart a UK Government vehicle because data was being transferred via a Chinese cellular module, a Chinese eSIM. We do not know who was in that car—whether it was the Defence Secretary or the Prime Minister. Evidence from a separate Tesla car scandal suggests that it would be possible for Chinese engineers to record private conversations using cellular modules. Just out of curiosity—I suspect I know the answer—are we ever going to get an update on what happened to that car and what was happening with it?
Alex Burghart
My hon. Friend will know that I am not in a position to comment on matters of national security, but he will have heard me say in answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) that we understand the view that the definition in the Bill could incorporate a broader range of assets, where information is gleaned on the movement of officials and politicians that could be detrimental to national security.
Amendment 34 will commit a Minister of the Crown to keep suppliers under review for potential investigation for debarment on national security grounds. We recognise that proactive consideration of suppliers will be highly advantageous in minimising the risk of suppliers who pose a threat to our national security being awarded public contracts. The amendment will therefore commit Ministers to proactively consider a new debarment investigation where there is evidence of risk, so that the Government can act effectively and on time.
I am also pleased to announce that the Government will be creating a new specialist unit with dedicated resources within the Cabinet Office to take on and manage this new approach. That new national security unit for procurement will regularly monitor Government supply chains and review pertinent information to determine which suppliers should be investigated for debarment on national security grounds. The unit will be able to draw on the full range of expertise within government and access the latest intelligence, including that from Five Eyes partners. It will be able to respond swiftly to emerging threats. The unit will also carry out investigations of suppliers for potential debarment, which will be overseen by a committee. Following the outcome of an investigation, the committee will make recommendations to the Minister as to whether the supplier should be added to the debarment list. The final decision will be made by the Minister.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
The Minister is making an excellent speech and I agree with the broad thrust of everything he is saying, but in terms of the practical application—how we debar businesses and organisations bidding in through a procurement process—can he just tell us how long an investigation would take? I realise it would be a case-by-case process, but if a procurement tender is put out, and a business or entity bids into it, how long would it expect that investigation to go on before that business or entity is debarred or not?
Alex Burghart
My hon. Friend will know that is a length of a piece of string question. In setting up the unit and providing it with resource, we are mindful of the need for it to be able to respond swiftly to emerging threats and to new entities. The unit will not serve its purpose if investigations go on too long. I cannot give him any guarantees on maximum length of time for investigation, but I can assure him that those concerns are very much in our thoughts as we go about establishing this new way of working.
The new unit will also have a role in supporting and upskilling contracting authorities. By directly engaging with them and providing guidance, the unit will help contracting authorities confidently implement the national security exclusion and debarment regime correctly, maximising its effectiveness.
Amendments 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 33, 35, 38, 53, 54 and 55 are minor and technical amendments to ensure that the exclusions and debarment regimes can function effectively.
I take this opportunity to thank all colleagues who have engaged with us on this, including my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), who is not in her place today. She has been instrumental in helping us to formulate these ideas in regard to national security and in particular our commitment to the national security unit for procurement.
The Government are taking national security extremely seriously, as the Bill and the amendments just mentioned make clear. Concerns have been expressed in the House regarding the use of surveillance equipment provided by entities subject to the national intelligence law of the People’s Republic of China, the risks of which we fully understand. I take this opportunity to remind the House that, in November, the Government published a written ministerial statement asking Departments to consider the removal of visual surveillance equipment from Government sensitive sites and to cease any future procurement of such equipment.
Today, we are going further. I commit to this House that, within six months of the Bill’s Royal Assent, the Government will set out the timeline for the removal of surveillance equipment supplied by companies subject to the national intelligence law of China from sensitive sites. I make it clear that we are taking firm and decisive action on this important matter and that we will be held to account for that action. That is why we will provide a clear plan for delivering on it, adhering to the timeline requested by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green. I hope that addresses his and other Members’ wishes that the Government take appropriate action.
If I may, I will address two final points. First, I thank each of the devolved Administrations for their constructive engagement during the drafting and passage of the Bill. I am pleased that the Senedd and the Scottish Parliament have agreed to the procurement aspects of the Bill, which are the vast majority of the clauses. However, despite our best efforts and several amendments, we have been unable to secure full legislative consent motions for the concurrent powers in the Bill relating to the implementation of international obligations. That is disappointing, but not unexpected, given that it is consistent with the position taken by the Scottish and Welsh Governments on the recent Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Act 2023.
I reassure the House that, as with current practice, we will continue to engage and consult with the devolved Administrations if they choose not to legislate for themselves in implementing the UK’s international obligations, in so far as they relate to areas of devolved competence. In the absence of a Northern Ireland Executive, a legislative consent motion for Northern Ireland was not possible. However, the permanent secretary for the Northern Ireland Department of Finance has written to the permanent secretary of the Cabinet Office to welcome the Bill as drafted and the close working relationship that has developed between officials.
Secondly, I take the opportunity to clarify the rules for private utilities where they have been directly awarded rights, for example, through a directly awarded contract at the request of the Department for Transport. Private utilities are within the scope of the Bill only where they have been granted a special or exclusive right to carry out a utility activity, effectively creating a monopoly situation. Clause 6(4) clarifies that the right is not special or exclusive where the right is granted following a competitive tendering procedure under the Bill or otherwise on the basis of a transparent procedure and non-discriminatory criteria. That has the effect, for example, that, if a contract for a utility activity with an incumbent supplier is renewed or replaced without competition, the supplier will have been granted a special or exclusive right. The supplier would therefore be classed as a private utility under the Bill. An example would be where an incumbent train operating company awarded a contract following competition has been directly awarded a new contract under DFT legislation.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
Three years ago, in the aftermath of the covid-19 pandemic, vital frontline staff across our NHS were struggling against dangerously low stocks of personal protective equipment. We all heard the stories of frontline workers in the early stages of the pandemic. These stories show us the impact of not procuring adequate reserves for a pandemic such as covid-19, and they show us why we need the right culture to rapidly respond to emergency procurement demands whenever they may show. Sadly, what we saw during the pandemic did not live up to standards. What followed, with the horror stories of frontline workers in the early stages of 2020, was a case study in wasteful and inefficient emergency procurement.
In January, the National Audit Office found that nearly £15 billion was wasted on unused covid supplies. That is £15 billion that could be going towards tens of thousands of full-time nursery places. It is £15 billion that could be going towards clearing the backlog in our NHS. It is £15 billion that could hand every single person in this country £220 and still have change left over. Instead, the incompetence we saw from this Government cost this country a fortune. In fact, the Government’s record keeping was so flawed that the Public Accounts Committee’s July 2022 report on the awarding of contracts to Randox during the pandemic stated it was
“impossible to have confidence that all its contracts with Randox were awarded properly.”
It is not just incompetence that costs the country. During the pandemic, the Government created a VIP lane for those offering to provide PPE. The system was extremely useful for some suppliers, with the Public Accounts Committee finding that one in 10 suppliers coming through the high-priority lane were awarded a contract. That compares with just one in 100 for the ordinary lane. The Cabinet Office and the Department of Health and Social Care also accepted that leads that went through the high-priority lane were handled better. Who was in that lane?
In the Public Account Committee’s report on PPE procurement, it stated
“The British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing told us that their organisations did not have access to the high-priority lane, even though they were being contacted by, and therefore would have been able to put forward, credible leads based on the knowledge of their members. The British Medical Association also noted that suppliers which had contacted them, including suppliers trusted by doctors, tried the normal channels of reaching out to the Government but had ‘hit a brick wall’. Care England told us that it had similarly shared the details of potential suppliers but there had been no follow-through.”
Instead, those with contacts with Government Ministers and officials, MPs and Members of the House of Lords were given access to this VIP lane. That included PPE Medpro, a company set up only a few days before but—surprise, surprise—with links to a Tory politician, which was awarded more than £200 million of public money. In total, £3.4 billion of taxpayers’ money in the form of contracts went to Conservative donors and friends. At a time when we were asking people up and down the country to come outside and clap, the Tory Government were giving cash to their donors. The Bill must be used to ensure that that never happens again.
Alex Burghart
It is a pleasure to wrap up a very interesting Report stage on this landmark piece of post-Brexit legislation that will allow our country to rewrite its procurement rules for the first time in decades.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), who had interesting reflections on the Bill. One could be forgiven for being able to listen to her remarks and not understand that the SNP has absented Scotland from the legislation. That is a great shame, and I believe that deep down she recognises the potential of the legislation. As the years go by, and small and medium-sized enterprises, and other businesses and contracting authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland benefit from the new regime, we will take pleasure in reminding businesses and contracting authorities in Scotland that it was the SNP that chose to keep Scotland out of it.
I touched on new clause 1, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), in my opening remarks. I am grateful for his saying that he will not push the new clause to a vote today. In return, I am pleased to reaffirm what I said earlier: we are happy to talk to him and other colleagues who are concerned about the definition of “sensitive”, to ensure that it captures the issues about which he is concerned. We do not consider “sensitive” to attach itself just to sites of military significance or intelligence centres controlled by the agencies. It goes further, and we will take his points away regarding ministerial movements.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
May I be clear? On the question I was asking, and have been asking, the Government have moved, particularly in reference to the national security laws of China, but my key point is that the Government should consider that all Departments fall into that category. There should not be any “B” definition. It would be far better if everybody were incorporated into that definition by the time the Bill got to the other place. Supplication would then have to be made for a variation or change, which the Cabinet Office will make a decision about. Start with the power; then let them come and ask for it to be changed. That is the way to do it.
Alex Burghart
I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. He will have heard me say earlier that we understand his views that “sensitive” could incorporate a broader range of assets, where information gleaned on the movement of officials and politicians could be detrimental to our national security.
I reaffirm our commitment to make a statement in the House within six months of Royal Assent, setting out the timeline for the removal from sensitive sites of surveillance equipment supplied by companies subject to the national intelligence law of China. I state again my gratitude to my right hon. Friend for his important work in this area and for the constructive dialogue that we have had with colleagues on the matter.
Amendment 3, tabled by the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), introduces a new ground for the exclusion of suppliers involved in forced organ harvesting. The amendment replicates an amendment made to the Bill in the other House, and subsequently removed by Committee of this House. I reassure her that the Government are not turning a blind eye to the extraordinarily important subject that she raises and highlights consistently.
We are in full agreement that complicity in the abuses associated with the overseas organ trade must not be tolerated. The Government have taken action to address that issue on a number of fronts. The Health and Care Act 2022 prohibits commercial organ tourism. I know the hon. Lady was involved in discussions leading to those provisions being included in the Act. The Government continue to monitor and review evidence relating to reports of forced organ harvesting in China, and maintain a dialogue with leading NGOs and international partners on that very important issue. I reassure her that forced organ harvesting is already covered by the exclusion grounds for professional misconduct. These grounds cover serious breaches of all ethical and professional standards—whether mandatory or not—that apply to different industries and sectors. The mandatory grounds in relation to corporate manslaughter and human trafficking are also relevant in this context. We have sought to limit the grounds—particularly those which, like this one, require an assessment of factual circumstances by the contracting authority—to those where there is a major and particular risk to public procurement. We are not aware of any evidence that a supplier to the UK public sector has been involved in forced organ harvesting, but I want to reassure the hon. Lady that the Bill will be able to deal with this horrendous practice appropriately.
Debbie Abrahams
I just want to make sure that the Minister has not forgotten my new clause 12.
Alex Burghart
I absolutely have not, and I am very much looking forward to getting to it after I gone through the intervening amendments. I appreciate the hon. Lady’s enthusiasm.
The mandatory grounds for exclusion cover the types of misconduct that raise only the most serious risks for contracting authorities. We have strengthened the mandatory grounds significantly in comparison with the EU regime, but they cannot and should not cover every offence that could raise a risk to contracting authorities. However, I can offer reassurance that the offences in question could justify discretionary exclusion on the ground of professional misconduct. This means that contracting authorities would have the flexibility to consider excluding the supplier, but could also factor in the nature of the contract being tendered and other relevant considerations in exercising their discretion.
Amendment 67 seeks to add a discretionary exclusion ground where there is evidence of financial and economic crime activity but there has not been any conviction of the listed offences. These concerns would already be caught by the ground of professional misconduct, which permits contracting authorities to weigh up the available evidence in the context of their procurement and use their discretion in determining whether an exclusion would be appropriate.
New clause 9, tabled by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), revisits the issues we discussed in Committee on the application of this Bill to certain healthcare services. New Clause 9 would insert a new clause 119 that would amend the Health and Care Act 2022, effectively deleting the power that enables the Department of Health and Social Care to make bespoke procurement regulations for the purposes of certain healthcare services, known as the provider selection regime. Amendment 13 deletes the existing clause 119 that provides a Minister of the Crown with a power to disapply the Bill to enable the provider selection regime regulations to be applied to those healthcare services.
The combined effect of these two amendments would be to stop the Department of Health and Social Care making separate procurement rules for certain healthcare services, and make the Procurement Bill apply to all healthcare services instead. As was discussed in Committee, the idiosyncrasies of healthcare delivery necessitate some special rules. The decision to create a free-standing scheme of healthcare-specific rules was taken in 2021 to give the NHS the tools required to deliver more joined-up patient pathways through the health system and to avoid some of the problems of double regulation of both the existing healthcare rules and the standard procurement rules. Significant effort has been expended and invested in consulting on and developing that free-standing scheme over several years now. All sides of the marketplace, including commissioners and providers in the healthcare industry, are expecting this new scheme to be delivered promptly to meet the policy aspirations that they have been so extensively consulted upon.
The Procurement Bill does not address any special measures tailored to support the healthcare reform made by the Health and Care Act 2022, as these measures have always been intended to be provided for in the new provider selection regime regulations. For example, the provider selection regime would permit direct awards to be made in defined circumstances, such as critical A&E services, that cannot be disrupted or when a certain provider is required to play a pivotal role in an integrated healthcare system. It would be incredibly unhelpful for both schemes at this critical stage, when both these healthcare regulations and the Procurement Bill are on the cusp of delivery, to start attempting to unpick it all now. Doing so would add unacceptable and entirely avoidable costs and delays to both programmes, for no tangible benefit. It would also mean more NHS contracts being subject to the rules of the Procurement Bill without due consideration of the exemptions and specific arrangements required to safeguard sustainable and joined-up delivery of NHS services to patients.
Of course Parliament will have its rightful opportunity to scrutinise the provider selection regime regulations, but it cannot be right to do this through the Procurement Bill for the purpose of killing off a near-ready scheme that supports important healthcare reforms that have already been debated and agreed by Parliament in the Health and Care Act.
Amendment 14, also tabled by the hon. Member for Richmond Park, would explicitly name the NHS in the definition of a contracting authority, a matter also discussed in Committee. Although I understand and entirely agree with the view that NHS bodies should be contracting authorities within the scope of this legislation, there is no need for any amendment in this respect, as the Bill already applies to NHS bodies in its current form.
New Clause 10, tabled by the hon. Member for Vauxhall, would require the submission of a tax report where a bidder is a multinational supplier. The tax reports of winning bidders would then be published. I understand that the aim of this amendment is to encourage contracting authorities to favour suppliers that can demonstrate responsible tax conduct. However, hon. Members will know that the basis on which contracts must be awarded under the Bill is by reference to award criteria that relate to the contract being tendered, not to other matters such as where a supplier pays tax. This is the right principle to deliver value for money for the taxpayer. Crucially, it is also a feature of the UK’s international obligations under the World Trade Organisation’s Government procurement agreement. Of course, the Government expect businesses to take all necessary steps to comply with their tax obligations. It is for His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to enforce the law on tax, and indeed UK-based multinational enterprises are required to make an annual country-by-country report to HMRC.
Turning to amendment 2, tabled by the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), we consider that the Bill already has the balance right in terms of achieving greater transparency on direct award. Indeed, save for the small subset of user-choice contracts, it will now be mandatory to publish a transparency notice declaring an intention to award a contract in every case. This will include confirmation of the contracting authority having undertaken a conflicts assessment prior to signature of the contract.
In addition, the Bill also requires the conflicts position to be kept under review and to be revised at key points in the procurement, which will be confirmed via the contract details notice, after the contract is signed. This further ensures contracting authorities comply with ongoing statutory requirements contained in the Bill. Of course, we are all aware that MPs and peers are already required to register their interests, and civil servants are required to confirm annually that their declarations of interest are up to date. Furthermore, the Bill includes an additional safeguard in clause 83(4) so that where
“a contracting authority is aware of circumstances that…are likely to cause a reasonable person to…believe there to be a conflict”
these must also be addressed. We take these matters very seriously, and there is no need for additional provision to cover this issue. We will continue to work with contracting authorities to show that they know the requirements around conflicts of interest and that they are implemented effectively.
On new clause 12, I welcome the ongoing efforts of the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) to improve liquidity for small businesses, including by advocating for and championing the increased use of project bank accounts. We recognise the energy and enthusiasm she brings to that campaign.
As I said in Committee, project bank accounts are most often an effective way to ensure fair payment and to protect suppliers, and they are already the Government’s preferred vehicle for construction contracts where it is cost-effective and cost-efficient. Government Departments have made a commitment to use PBAs in construction projects unless there are compelling reasons not to do so. However, it is not the Government’s position that PBAs should be mandated across all contracting authorities, as they are not always suitable or cost-effective, particularly where the subcontractor is very small or is paid more frequently than monthly, or where the supply chain is short. Instead, we intend to continue educating contracting authorities, through guidance, on the circumstances in which we believe PBAs are practical and effective.
Debbie Abrahams
I remind the Minister that new clause 12 covers contracts worth over £2 million, so it is not for all contracts.
Alex Burghart
I accept the hon. Lady’s point, but there are other circumstances to consider, which I have just outlined.
We are already working with industry to discourage the withholding of retentions by supporting zero retention for high-quality work pilot projects and reducing the default rate of retentions within certain types of contract to zero. However, we do not support dictating the operation of construction contracts to the degree proposed.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Burghart Excerpts(11 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
Throughout the pandemic, the Government took their responsibilities to people with disabilities extremely seriously. We all remember the daily press conferences, which almost always had signers present, but that was just one element of a much broader communications strategy that ensured guidance and information were provided in easy-read, large text, audio and many other formats.
Liz Twist
Many people with disabilities would disagree with the Minister’s assessment of the communications and feel that, throughout the pandemic, the Government often failed to provide specific communications to disabled people about their rights and access to support. What steps is he taking to ensure that public health announcements, public health information and daily briefings are accessible to and are reaching people with disabilities, particularly those with a learning disability?
Alex Burghart
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. On covid, I understand that this is something the inquiry will be considering. On her broader point, she will know that the NHS and publicly funded social care in this country have a duty, under section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, to ensure that patients and people in care receive information in formats appropriate for them. I know the NHS takes that responsibility extremely seriously.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Research from Scope shows that, in the last four years, the cost of running a disabled household rose from £583 a month to £975 a month. The Conservative cost of living crisis has forced disabled people to choose between using life-saving equipment and food. After 13 years of this Government, there are now over 1 million disabled people living in poverty. What action has the Minister taken to support these people?
Alex Burghart
The hon. Lady will know the extraordinary lengths to which this Government have gone to support people through the cost of living crisis. Help has been extended to people of all means and abilities, including the people she is speaking about, and we will continue to do what is necessary to help them.
Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con)
Digital Economy Act 2017: Data Sharing
Alex Burghart Excerpts(11 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
This Government are committed to transforming the delivery of public services, so that they are easier to use, joined-up and provide better value for money to the taxpayer. To this end, the Cabinet Office has today published the Government’s response to the public consultation on new data sharing regulations, which will help more people prove who they are online so that they can access the services they need simply and quickly.
From January to March 2023, the Government consulted on draft regulations to improve data sharing so that people may more easily access public services online. The regulations would create a new objective under the Digital Economy Act 2017 for this purpose, allowing controlled data sharing between a number of public bodies already specified in the Act and with four additional organisations: the Cabinet Office, the Department for Transport, the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs, and the Disclosure and Barring Service. These public bodies either hold information that can be used to verify someone is who they say they are, and/or require the outcome of such checks in order to provide access to their services. The proposed legislation would enable data sharing between the specified organisations only for the purpose of helping someone confirm their identity, when they are requesting access to a Government service online. All data sharing under the regulations would continue to comply with robust existing data protection legislation.
Every response has been read and the Government thank those respondents who expressed their views through the consultation. The devolved Administrations support the proposed regulations.
The Government are clear that there is not public support for national identity cards in the UK and this is not something prosed in, or enabled by, this legislation. Where responses did engage with the specific consultation questions, they highlighted the wider potential benefits of the data sharing regulations, including to physical health and social well-being, and we will make a minor amendment on this basis. The Government have also proposed that the draft regulations would come into force 21 days after, rather than the day after, being approved by Parliament.
The UK Government intend to take forward legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows. I have asked that the Government response be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses in Parliament and published on www.gov.uk.
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