Procurement Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall and Lord Clement-Jones

Committee stage
Monday 18th July 2022 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am tempted to say to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that he need not sit down since I am about to call him.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

Thank you. My Lords, if noble Lords thought that my previous speech took a long time, they will not be happy with the second half of it, which concerns the technical parts. These relate to Amendments 452A, 452B, 519A and 519B, which are technical amendments from the Local Government Association designed to ensure that all notices come within the new digital platform.

Amendments 452A and 452B relate to Clause 86(1) of the Bill, which sets out that appropriate authorities may by regulations make provision about

“the form and content of notices, documents or other information to be published or provided under this Act”

and

“how such notices or documents are, or information is, to be published, provided or revised.”

The amendments would help ensure that future regulations do not contravene the purpose of the single digital platform wherever possible and support the move to progressively streamline the many different publication requirements for procurement information and contract-spend data placed on local government and the public sector as a whole through different pieces of legislation.

Amendment 519A would omit Section 89(4)(b) and 89(5) of the Transport Act 1985. This would remove the requirement for local authorities to issue notices of tender individually to all persons who have given to that authority a written notice indicating that they wish to receive invitations to tender for the provision of local services for that authority’s area. This would bring the requirements to advertise tenders for transport services into line with those set out in the Bill and facilitate the ambition to create a single digital platform where all public tenders are advertised in one place.

Finally, Amendment 519B would amend the Service Subsidy Agreements (Tendering) (England) Regulations 2002 by removing Regulations 4 and 5. Regulation 4 requires local authorities to publish information relating to tender invitations in accordance with Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the same regulations. Regulation 5 requires local authorities to publish tender information to the general public at times, in places and in a form which are convenient to the public, and to publish notices of tenders in local newspapers. Removing the two regulations would ensure that information about contract pipelines and contract awards for service subsidies will in future be published in the same place and format as information about any other public contract, to improve consistency and accessibility. A service subsidy in this context is where councils subsidise companies operating public passenger transport services to run services on routes which may not otherwise be economically viable, for example bus services in rural areas. I hope that has explained these rather technical amendments and very much hope that the Minister understands the motive behind them.