My Lords, Amendment 38 stands in the name of my noble friend Lord McNicol. I declare my interest as vice-president of the LGA.
Just to revisit the context of this, I believe, very important group of amendments, we are looking at the broader context of accountability, probity and transparency in all things to do with public money, making sure that we do not leave any room at all for corruption or cronyism as we take the Bill forward. We will be considering the whole issue of individual subsidies under £500,000 being excluded from the database. Huge concern was expressed in the other place, at Second Reading and in Committee last week—across all parties, to be fair—and representing a range of different interests which had their comments noted through the consultation exercise that has taken place. We are very concerned at the lack of scrutiny provision also, bearing in mind that we are talking about a system depending on challenge without all necessarily having all the information.
I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, and the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, for supporting various amendments in this group. I am very glad to continue discussions on transparency, as I have said, reflecting, as I am sure we all have, on the very interesting exchanges on related subjects in the last meetings. Taken collectively, these amendments will allow us all to see whether BEIS and the Government have updated their thinking on the transparency thresholds and exemptions since the Bill went through the Commons. I think we are all approaching this in a spirit of hope that some serious reflection has taken place on these very important matters.
If we are to have confidence in this new regime and the public authorities that use it, transparency measures will be hugely important. We all have personal experience in this area; every one of us will be familiar by now with the need for regular reporting requirements around official meetings, travel and gifts. All this is done in the spirit of making sure that none of us is above the scrutiny of the public, particularly where public money is a point of consideration. This is not down to any particular group or party; it is simply a practical demonstration of the importance of knowing how public funds are being utilised.
Amendment 38 was tabled as a probing amendment but has taken on a new significance following last week’s discussion where my noble friend Lord McNicol and the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, were at odds on how an unpublished subsidy made under a scheme could be challenged by an interested party. The simple answer is that, if information is not published, then there is no right of recourse should one business or public authority feel undermined by a subsidy awarded to another business and/or by another authority. The Government insist that we do not need to worry since any subsidy over £500,000 will be published, but is it not the case that in many circumstances a subsidy one-tenth of that value can have significant differential impact on the fortunes of two businesses operating in the same field?
Amendments 39, 47 and 48 are to different provisions in the Bill and vary slightly in the burdens that would be placed on public authorities, but they are premised on the same basic point: a threshold of £500 is consistent with transparency rules already followed across much of the public sector. We are talking about consistency, clarity and transparency. If the Government are serious about having a transparent and evidence-based subsidy regime, should we not be able to see the detail of the subsidies being handed out? As with domestically sourced content, having extra data would allow more informed analysis of what schemes are effective and where future efforts should be focused.
We can of course pre-empt some of the Minister’s arguments—for example, that this would place unfair burdens on smaller awarding bodies and that these subsidies have a less distortive effect—but on balance we do not find these compelling, and neither did a number of Members of Parliament or expert witnesses in the House of Commons. I would point out that cost is not an excessive burden; because of the systems that already exist, the burden is estimated to be relatively small, around £20,000 a year. Bodies such as Transparency International and the Centre for Policy Studies are equally putting their weight behind arguments to take this forward.
Amendment 49 is designed to probe why certain SPEI services are excluded from reporting requirements while others are not.
I suspect that we will end up seeing some movement on the matter of monetary thresholds, but I wish to sound a warning on this: we may not be able to settle on £500, but I ask that we do not choose too large a sum or the incentive for authorities just to knock off £1 to get below the threshold and thus sneak in under the regime will remain too tempting. I beg to move.