I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 102B.
It is an honour once again to open the debate on this important Bill, which I am delighted to say is now so close to receiving Royal Assent. The Bill is a key Brexit benefit, delivering a simpler, more transparent procurement framework that will benefit small businesses and meet the needs of UK suppliers and contracting authorities.
Colleagues in the Chamber will also, I hope, remember that, when the Bill was last debated in this House, we offered significant new measures to protect the UK’s public procurement supply chain from threats to national security. Those included new grounds to add suppliers to the debarment list for particular types of contracts that will allow us to ban risky suppliers from bidding for those contracts; the creation of a new national security unit for procurement that will provide dedicated resources in the Cabinet Office to scrutinise national security risks in procurement; and a commitment to publish a timetable for removal of surveillance equipment supplied by companies subject to the national intelligence law of China from Government Department sensitive sites. Earlier this week in the other place, we went further: my noble friend Baroness Neville-Rolfe provided an official clarification of the definition of sensitive sites and committed to an annual written report detailing progress. I am sure this House will welcome our additional agreements and agree that they demonstrate the Government’s unwavering dedication to tackle these issues seriously.
I will deal today with one amendment that the other place sent back to this House, on the subject of organ harvesting. Let me begin by saying that I think all sides of this House are in complete agreement that organ harvesting is a dreadful practice that has no place in our supply chains. The question before us today is whether Lords amendment 102B is the right or necessary one to make, given other provisions in the Bill. In Committee in this House, the Government removed a discretionary exclusion ground for suppliers engaged in forced organ harvesting. The other place has subsequently proposed an amendment in lieu, with some modifications of the original amendment. This new version of the Lords amendment does not cover unethical activities relating to human tissue; it does, however, still cover forced organ harvesting and dealing in devices, equipment or services relating to forced organ harvesting.
I urge this House to reject this amendment for a number of reasons. First, as I have said previously, I do not believe that the amendment is necessary as, crucially, organ harvesting is already dealt with under existing provisions in the Procurement Bill. Under the Bill, any suppliers failing to adhere to existing ethical or professional standards that apply in their industry, including those relating to the removal, storage and use of human tissue, could be excluded on the grounds of professional misconduct. It is worth adding at this point that, as far
as His Majesty’s Government are aware, no supplier in the UK public sector has been involved in forced organ harvesting. This means that it is very unlikely that any of our public money is being spent on that terrible practice. As noted above, however, if such a situation did arise, the exclusion for professional misconduct would apply.
Secondly, the amendment has significant consequences for contracting authorities. It extends to suppliers
“dealing in any device or equipment or services relating to forced organ harvesting.”
That is an incredibly broad provision that would be extremely difficult for contracting authorities and suppliers to verify in respect of all supply chains and customer bases. If there were any doubt about whether that discretionary ground applied, local authorities or NHS trusts would need to undertake significant due diligence to satisfy themselves that the entire supply chain and the end user of all goods provided by suppliers—potentially including oxygen masks, IT equipment and so on—were not used in these terrible practices. It would mean that a small business tendering for Government contracts would need to understand where their customers might be using or selling their products, to enable them to genuinely and legitimately confirm that they were not subject to this ground.
More generally, the amendment would create excessive bureaucracy, requiring each and every supplier bidding across the thousands of contracts awarded by contracting authorities each year to declare that they are not guilty of forced organ harvesting, when we know that there is no evidence of that horrific practice occurring in UK public sector supply chains. We believe that such a burden would be unjustified when the Bill already covers this issue.
Thirdly, the Government are already taking steps to tackle the issue of organ harvesting. We have been explicit that the overseas organ trade, or complicity with it, will not be tolerated. For example, by virtue of the Health and Care Act 2022, it is already an offence to travel outside of the UK to purchase an organ. In addition, the Government continue to monitor and review evidence relating to reports of forced organ harvesting in China, and maintain a dialogue with leading non-governmental organisations and international partners on this very important issue. This Bill creates new rules for suppliers and contracting authorities that will hopefully stay on the statute book for many decades to come.