Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Alex Burghart

Thursday 18th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

9. Whether he has made an assessment of the adequacy of public procurement processes under covid-19 emergency regulations.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)]

There are well established procedures in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 for handling emergency procurements, which enable the Government to procure lifesaving goods and expertise. We followed those procedures in order to save lives as fast as we could during the worst pandemic in living memory. The Procurement Act 2023, which has just passed both Houses of Parliament, will introduce faster competition processes for emergency buying, reducing the reliance on direct awards while retaining and improving transparency, and the ability to act at pace in situations similar to the covid pandemic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Debbie Abrahams]

The fact that Ministers’ mates can get these lucrative contracts, as last month’s evidence showed, while tens of thousands of our constituents struggle to put food on the table is an absolute disgrace. Of the £12.6 billion-worth of personal protective equipment contracts let in 2020, will the Minister confirm—I have evidence on this, so I advise him to choose his language carefully—that up to a third were fraudulent, or the result of profiteering or conflicts of interest?

[Alex Burghart]

I would be very interested to see the hon. Lady’s evidence. Where there is evidence of fraud, we will of course go after that, as we have done so in a number of high-profile cases. Where investigations are ongoing, we will recoup as much money as we can for the British taxpayer.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Alex Burghart

Thursday 7th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

As ever, my hon. Friend has his finger on the pulse. I was lucky enough to be on a work trip to Edinburgh and Glasgow just before the summer break, and all the people I met there were interested in employment, skills, the state of the health service, and law and order. Not one person raised a second referendum with me, which is because it is not among people’s priorities in Scotland. People’s priorities are the same as those of the Westminster Government.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

T3.   Ipsos recently published its annual poll on trust in politics, which revealed that only 12% of respondents actually believed what a politician was saying—the lowest level in 29 years. Will the Minister look again at my Elected Representatives (Codes of Conduct) Bill, which is aimed specifically at restoring trust and confidence in politics and politicians?

[Alex Burghart]

I am very happy to look again at the hon. Lady’s work. Our general belief is that it is our actions in this place and outside it as elected representatives that will restore trust in politics rather than legislation, and that is a job for all of us.

Procurement Bill [Lords]

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Alex Burghart

Report stage
Tuesday 13th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[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.

List of Ministers’ Interests and Ministerial Code

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Alex Burghart

Monday 24th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Gentleman, I am sure, as a member of PACAC, will have read Sir Laurie Magnus’s list, published last week, in which he outlines that Ministers are doing what they are expected to do and that permanent secretaries are helping them to do so.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

There are so many loopholes in the regulatory system for all the codes of conduct, but in that of the ministerial code in particular. The so-called Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests is anything but independent, and unable to initiate their own investigations or to decide on what sanctions are appropriate. When will the Government adopt my Elected Representatives (Codes of Conduct) Bill, which I introduced at the beginning of the year to close the existing loopholes?

[Alex Burghart]

With all due respect to the hon. Lady, it is completely the case that the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests is independent. He is independent and he conducts his duties accordingly in that role.