I am pleased to speak in support of Amendment 5. The Institute for Government puts UK government spending on procuring goods, works and services from external suppliers in 2018-19 at around £292 billion, which is more than a third of all public spending. This huge spending capacity should be used as leverage to ensure the highest standards of labour rights here in the UK and in countries with which we do business. The Trade Bill gives the Government the opportunity to advance this process.
This amendment and the later Amendment 18 ask the Government to permit public bodies to consider more than short-term concerns such as lowest price and to take into account the welfare of the workers who will carry out the contract, ensuring that acceptable standards of employment are applied by any successful bidder. The conditions suggested in the amendment are in no way onerous; they are the basic minimum standards as set out in the conventions of the International Labour Organization which have been ratified by the UK. As we are a founding member of the ILO and a country that has ratified the eight fundamental conventions, this would not be asking too much. The amendment simply expects that any trade deal should not undermine or restrict the ability of a public body to include in its tender that bidders should abide by these basic employment rights, covering: freedom of association; the right to organise and to free collective bargaining; following basic rules against forced labour and child labour; and outlawing discrimination.
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As we know from some very bad experiences, the company that wins a contract does not necessarily fulfil it directly. Carillion, for example, had 30,000 sub-contractors. Quite often, the public body that has procured the work knows very little about who these sub-contractors are. The public provider must be able to extend the ILO standards to any company involved in delivering a contract. We should expect that a contractor or sub-contractor, whether based abroad or in the UK, which does not meet those standards should be excluded from bidding for public sector contracts. It is a step that we must take.
To make this more than a tick-box exercise, delivery of contracts should be reviewed to assess whether the ILO standards are being adhered to, the bidders should be required to demonstrate that they are being met, and the employees delivering the contract should be asked to confirm that this is happening. Trade unions should be able to trigger inquiries into a company if they suspect that the standards are not being met. Where migrant or overseas workers are used, the expectation should be that they will not be subjected to unequal treatment, and contractors should be required to demonstrate that that is the case.
My noble friend Lord Hendy described this amendment as a modest demand, and, as I said earlier, these requirements are not onerous but they are fundamental. As we set off into a new world of international trade deals from a situation of relative inexperience, it is important to nail these issues down now. So I am sure that the Government will want to accept this amendment.