My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. I have already spoken to the positive case for the inclusion of climate and nature in the Bill. Amendments 65 and 546, to which I have added my name, would offer the particular benefit of providing additional stability or, if noble Lords wish, discouraging repeated tinkering through the frequent updates of the national procurement policy statement by putting the essentials of the NPPS in the Bill.
I make one other point, which relates to the contrast between the Green Paper and the language on the national procurement policy statement. The Green Paper said, strongly and correctly, that
“money spent through public procurement will be used to deliver government priorities through projects and programmes that generate economic growth, help our communities recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and tackle climate change.”
These have all been mentioned already by noble Lords. Elsewhere,
“government spending must be leveraged to play its part in the UK’s economic recovery, opening up public contracts to more small businesses and social enterprises to innovate in public service delivery, and meeting our net-zero carbon target by 2050.”
The eventual text of the current non-statutory NPPS is perhaps a little more modest in its application: it only requires contracting authorities to have regard to considering contributing to the UK’s climate target—but not to its interim carbon budgets or climate adaptation—and to considering identifying opportunities to enhance biodiversity. There are no specific environmental targets. With such a large annual spend on public procurement, this may be a missed opportunity for the Government to strengthen these provisions by instead requiring contracting authorities to have regard to actively contributing to specific climate and nature targets, rather than just considering contributing to them.
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The text in the amendments will also provide more consistency with the Health and Care Act, without at any time tying the hands of contracting authorities in the scope of the Bill. Tackling climate change is a global issue, but the UK can show leadership and improve competitiveness by explicitly driving change across supply chains through sustainable public procurement, while simultaneously supporting domestic priorities such as levelling up.
I believe totally in social justice and in our small and medium-sized enterprises. I will continue to fight from these Benches for the interests of those businesses, because they have suffered so badly, particularly during the last two or three years. It is also an opportunity for us to be able to put them in a much firmer position. The Minister, during the debate on the previous group of amendments, was very kind enough to agree to meeting the noble Lord, Lord Knight. I hope that the same opportunity to meet with the Minister will also be given to me and the noble Baronesses, Lady Worthington, Lady Parminter and Lady Young of Old Scone.