Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

5. When the Government plan to bring forward legislative proposals to reform public procurement.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

7. When the Government plan to bring forward legislative proposals to reform public procurement.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

16. When the Government plan to bring forward legislative proposals to reform public procurement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Ellis]

The Conservative party is a party of free trade and a free economy. I do not know about the Labour party. We are improving procurement and thereby having a major effect on the economy. The hon. Member, like everyone else, will have to wait for the details of how the new rules will be implemented and how they will work, but, through a Green Paper, we have asked everyone to feed in their ideas and suggestions for detailed policies. Based on that, a Bill is currently being prepared for introduction to Parliament and I know that the hon. Member will look forward to that.

[Nick Smith]

Given that the Government’s VIP lane for personal protective equipment contracts has been ruled unlawful, will there be immediate publication of contracts after emergency procurement to restore faith in the system? It would help avoid having the Government hauled so embarrassingly through the courts.

[Michael Ellis]

I do not accept that characterisation of any technical breaches that may have occurred. If the hon. Member looks at the judgment, he will see that the court ruled yesterday that the Government’s industry call to arms was open, transparent and justified in a time of national emergency. Actually, the court found that it was highly unlikely that the outcome would have been substantially different if a different assessment process had been followed.