Equality Bill

My Lords, the purpose of the amendment is to invite the noble Baroness to explain what appears on the surface to be incompatibility between the Government’s proposals on public procurement and one, or perhaps even two, directives in the European Union. Clause 154 gives the power to a Minister of the Crown, or to a Scottish or a Welsh Minister, to impose specific duties on public authorities listed in Schedule 19 that are also contracting authorities for public procurement purposes. The Minister may correct me if I am wrong, but I assumed that the Government’s intentions are for public procurement to be another area in which the goal of equality can be pursued. We therefore tabled this probing amendment, which would make any order made under Clauses 152 or 153 subject to public sector directive 2004/18/EC and directive 2007/66/EC, merely to inquire as to the status of the European directives on public procurement that seem to undermine the Government’s intentions in this area. I immediately apologise to the Committee for any confusion that may have been caused by the reference in the amendment to the ““Public Sector Equality Directive””. What was meant, of course, was ““public sector directive””. The intention is that public sector authorities should be able to use procurement as an extra tool to secure equality. The amendment seeks to clarify the extent to which the Government have taken the EU directives into account on this issue. I am sure that they have; I merely seek reassurance, which I believe the Minister will give. However, the Committee may find it useful if I explain why this is a complicated area. Public sector directive 2004/18/EC requires that public contracts are awarded on the basis of only two award criteria: ““the most economically advantageous tender”” or ““the lowest price””. In what way do the Government expect the public procurement provisions to work given these constraints? Public sector directive 2007/66/EC has provisions within it that state that there must be review procedures, which would include the award of damages to any person who is harmed by an infringement of the specifications of the directive. We therefore have one European directive which states that public procurement can be based only on two very narrow criteria, and one which states that any infringement of this would result in the award of damages to the party that has lost out. Have these directives been taken into account? What is the solution for ensuring that the Government’s objective of equality-based public sector procurement can also occur? I look forward to hearing the response of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. I beg to move.