Procurement Bill [HL]

Baroness Parminter Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 13th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I will just wind up the debate we had on Monday. In this group, I have Amendment 52, which is about adding the improvement of

“economic, social and environmental well-being”

to the procurement objectives. I also put my name to a similar amendment, Amendment 48 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. I completely support everything that he said in his introduction; it covered what I would have said in support of my amendment, so there is no point in going over all that again. In fact, we discussed a number of amendments in this group that looked at the economic, social, environmental and cultural benefit and value of the Bill and considered what we mean by “public benefit”. It was a useful debate to explore those potential objectives and what the definition of “public benefit” is. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s response to those discussions.

I also supported the amendments laid by my noble friend Lady Thornton, Amendments 47A and 52A. As my noble friend said, we believe that maximising social value is something that contracting authorities should have regard to. This is in line with the social value Act and the national procurement policy strategy, so this should all be put in line together. We also know that the Government are committed to expanding the use of social value within procurement to maximise these areas. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, who is not in her place today—

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

I am in my place.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Oh, the noble Baroness is there; I was looking for her in the place in which she sat on Monday. She moved, just to confuse me. This is the trouble with picking things up later.

The noble Baroness rightly said that meeting net zero is a government-stated objective and we believe, as she does, that this should also be an objective within the Procurement Bill. It could make a genuine difference, should that be something that needs to be taken account of. We also support those noble Lords who said in the debate that this helps to meet the levelling-up agenda as well as achieving net zero.

We know that social value is included in the NPPS—the national procurement policy statement—so I ask the Minister: if it is in the policy statement, why is it not referenced in the Bill? It concerns me that the policy statement can be changed at any point, so not having it in the Bill and just having it in the statement means that it is not absolutely embedded within the legislation. I will briefly mention that, between 2012 and 2020, there was no statutory guidance on social value. This inhibits its development, so we need to ensure that this does not happen in future.

I express strong support for Amendments 49 and 58 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, which are about climate and environmental matters and the importance of having these based within the Bill. She also said that “public benefit” needs further clarity, so I must ask again: does “public benefit” include environmental outcomes? It would be helpful to have further information on this. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, spoke importantly about the fact that using procurement in this way is an opportunity to drive behaviour change, because we are not going to achieve the Government’s net-zero objectives without behaviour change.

Amendment 45 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, specifies a number of overarching requirements that a contracting authority must take due regard of when carrying out procurement. We support the main points that he made—particularly, as well as the carbon account, the ethical and human rights record of the supplier, as he said. I know that we will talk about this in a later debate, but that is important.

Amendment 53 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, which the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, introduced, again talked about defining “public benefit”. I think that the Minister can see that this is not party political: right across the Committee there is concern about what “public benefit” means and what it is going to deliver as part of the Procurement Bill. The noble Lords, Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Purvis, also tabled amendments on this issue.

I finish by briefly mentioning an interesting briefing that I had from UKCloud. I do not know if other noble Lords have received it, but it is about the importance of maximising social value through procurement in the world that UKCloud works in—the cloud providers—and how doing so would be consistent with wider net-zero policy aspirations. UKCloud feels that it is important to support businesses in this country that are providing those kinds of platforms and support and that the sector can lead in the provision of clean, green technologies, which can help to digitise and decarbonise users of its services. It also believes that, if the sector got that kind of support from government, UK businesses would have the opportunity to really innovate and become leaders in this field. I found that an interesting briefing. If the Minister has not seen it, I would be happy to share it with him, because it had some interesting thoughts in it. The briefing also said that UKCloud feels that weighting should be given to make sure that cloud providers for the UK Government are paying their taxes in full on all earned income in the UK—that is an important point—and that they should have a clear and measurable track record of investing in local jobs and skills. The briefing has some interesting points about how procurement could help its particular type of business. I finish there and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the Committee, I will move Amendment 60 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lansley and speak to Amendments 61, 63 and 64 in his name. As on our previous Committee day, at his request I am handling his amendments this week.

Amendment 60 is one of those favourite Committee amendments that changes “may” to “must”. No Committee can ever get through without at least one of them; there will be some others, I think. The amendment would change “may” to “must” in Clause 12(1) so that it would require the Government to produce a national procurement policy statement. Although it is clearly the Government’s intention to publish a statement, the current wording of Clause 12 leaves it open to them not to do so. That is a serious omission, especially given the introduction of covered procurement, which we will debate on Report. The NPPS will be the only way to ensure that all public procurement is conducted in accordance with the principles and objectives set out in it.

Amendments 63 and 64 would require that the consultation is based on a draft statement. The present drafting would allow a consultation without the benefit of seeing what the Government intended the statement to say. I do not think this is an acceptable or effective consultation process. It makes something of a mockery of consultation, particularly for the first NPPS. I note that Amendment 74 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, also includes proper consultation on a draft.

The other amendment in my noble friend’s name is Amendment 61. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, has added her name to it, and I understand that she will also speak to it. That is probably just as well, because I am not much in favour of lists such as the one here, even when they are non-inclusive. The various other amendments in this group show that noble Lords are attracted to attaching other pet causes to the list. I should say, though, that my noble friend Lord Lansley believes that we must ensure that the existing statutory obligations on the environment and social value are included in the priorities in order to reaffirm Parliament’s will, and he has added innovation and competitiveness in UK industry because they are stated Treasury priorities, as set out in the Spring Statement. Lastly, he included

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

which should be underlying values in relation to public procurement. He believes that these items should be specifically referenced in the Bill.

I beg to move.

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group. In the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, I rise to introduce Amendments 65 and 546.

This is an important group of amendments. Although contracting authorities may never bother to read a Bill that we have debated for hours, all of them must have regard to the NPPS, so what is in that document is really important. The amendments in this group look at two particular areas. One is what is put in the Bill about the strategic priorities. The second is the process for parliamentary scrutiny to bring that into being.

Amendments 65 and 546, in my name and the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Worthington, Lady Verma and Lady Young of Old Scone, so they are cross-party amendments, are intended to tease out the strategic priorities that the Government allude to in the opening sentence of the NPPS, as stated in the Bill, because it does not put anything in the Bill.