My Lords, obviously I accept that, but we will certainly undertake to provide further information.
The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, was adumbrating cases where it should be possible to take different issues into account in terms of local activity. I understand the point that noble Lords are making about clarity.
Clarity can either be sought through superdefinition, chasing the Snark through the end of the rainbow—sorry, I am mixing my metaphors—or it can be something for which the Government set out a clear framework that ultimately it is open to anyone in a free society to test under the common law. There is a balance to be found here and we will write further.
On Amendment 57, the noble Lords, Lord Wallace and Lord Fox, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, complain that Clause 11 does not define value for money in order to leave a degree of flexibility for different types of organisation with different drivers to place a different emphasis on the concept. That is not unusual in legislation. Value for money as a concept is not uncommon on the statute book without further definition. It has been used in relation to setting high-level objectives for organisations, including the general duties of Ofcom in Section 3 of the Communications Act 2003 and indeed those of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority in Section 4 of the Energy Act.
There are many precedents, I am told, but I have only given two of them where the term is left undefined, and this allows a degree of flexibility. We are happy with the broad interpretation of value for money, but Amendment 58 would have the effect of limiting the scope for future reviews of what value for money means. That is something that future Governments might wish to do. We do not support that position at the moment but, again, I am ready to listen to further discussion in Committee.
Amendments 128 and 130, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, amend the provisions on award criteria. I am grateful to the noble Lord, first for the explanatory statement which sets out that his amendment intends to ensure that value for money does not override other procurement objectives, and secondly for his exposition of it. While it is important to be clear that Clause 22 does not affect the relative weighting of the objectives in Clause 11, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his consideration of this point and respond on that basis.
Public procurement needs to be focused on achieving value for money, and we submit that this is rightly at the top of the list of objectives set out in Clause 11. The noble Lord laid an amendment, the second part of which would in effect—taken literally—relegate or at least abnegate the possibility of placing value for money exclusively at the top. Our submission is that, while value for money will be the highest priority in procurement for the Government and that is reflected in the drafting of the Bill, it does not disapply or override the obligation on contracting authorities to have due regard to the other matters in Clause 11. I have no doubt that this will be probed further, but I hope that this will reassure the noble Lord that the amendment is not only unnecessary but, in its detail, we could not accept it. There is a balance to be sought here, and that balance will be seen differently by successive Administrations in successive places.
There was a very interesting range of amendments put forward in this group. I have listened carefully, and we will engage further on the points raised. I hope on that basis that noble Lords will feel ready to withdraw or not move their amendments.