UK Parliament / Open data

Procurement Bill [HL]

Proceeding contribution from Lord Berkeley (Labour) in the House of Lords on Wednesday, 6 July 2022. It occurred during Debate on bills and Committee proceeding on Procurement Bill [HL].

I take the noble Lord back to his response on Amendment 18 in relation to public passenger transport services. He argued, probably rightly, that they are the responsibility of the Department for Transport and should therefore be exempt here.

Paragraph 17 of Schedule 2 defines a “contract”, and paragraphs 33, 34 and 35 at the end of the schedule cover “Concession contracts”, which are all exempt. I assume—perhaps the Minister could confirm this—that the exemptions for “air services” and “a qualifying air carrier” come under the definition of “concession”, because the Bill says this, although it does not define what a concession is.

I am concerned that there are examples in this country of a third category: a franchise. I am not sure where that comes into this; I know of one air service that is a PSO and probably a franchise, and, certainly, some bus and train contracts are franchises. If the Minister does not have the answer to that today—it is a little detailed—perhaps he could write to us, because it is quite important. If the Bill is going to exempt all these things, the whole lot needs to be exempted and handed to the Department for Transport. It is no good having concessions exempted and franchises not. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
823 cc265-6GC 
Session
2022-23
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
Back to top