My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. I echo all the comments he made. I want to make a brief remark in support of Amendments 85 and 87 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, which I and my colleagues have co-signed, and in support of the point made so powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, about ensuring that there a commitment in the Bill to deliver the net-zero and environmental goals through a commitment to ensuring that “public goods” includes sustainability goals. That is fundamental.
I will add only one point that has not been covered by colleagues. It is that this is not happening at the moment. The National Audit Office and the Environmental Audit Committee in the House of Commons have looked into public procurement by government departments and found there to be a woeful lack of connection with consideration of net zero and our environmental goals, and that is when government departments already have a statement from the Cabinet Office that is meant to guide them towards it. It is not happening, but that is completely separate from the far wider issue of where it is absolutely not happening, which is in public services procurement, where there is no guidance. If we do not have a national public policy statement on that, it will not happen, so it is absolutely fundamental that we get this in the Bill.
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My second point, which has been alluded to by a number of colleagues, is the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, has skilfully linked putting sustainability in the Bill with innovation. I absolutely agree that those two things are fundamental. I do not mind what wording the Government take, but those two things have to be looked at together. With all the issues that the noble Lord mentioned, if we do not get innovation clearly sorted out, then companies involved in net zero and the environment are the disruptors. They are small companies, not the established big boys—or big girls, if you want to be gender neutral. That is about as far as I will go on gender neutral before we get into arguments. We need to make sure that the Bill prioritises innovation. Otherwise, we will not be able to ensure that the smaller disruptor organisations which are involved in net zero and the environment can play the role that we need them to play in future. Therefore, I look forward to the Government’s response to these points around putting into the Bill a commitment to sustainability goals through delivering the net zero and environmental goals and ensuring that innovation is in the Bill at the same time.