My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, pointed out, this is a wide range of varying amendments on a scale that, I suggest, is suboptimal for the proper scrutiny of this Bill. Frankly, it is symptomatic of the whole nature of this Bill and the way in which we are expected to scrutinise it. That said, because there are so many different things in here, there is a danger of some of the gems getting buried. I am going to burnish just a few of them but I hope that the Minister will be able to look back through the Marshalled List and Hansard to make sure that they are not overlooked, even if she is unable to comment fully on the whole range of amendments.
Those of us who can remember the beginning of this group will remember that we were talking about KPIs. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and my noble friend Lord Scriven, talked about them, as will I when I speak to Amendments 275A and 276ZA—I have never seen a “ZA” before—in my name.
Amendment 275A would remove the power granted by the Bill to the appropriate authority—otherwise known as the Secretary of State, as far as I understand it—to change the threshold at which KPIs may be published. At the moment, the threshold is set at £2 million. If my noble friend Lord Scriven, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, were successful in changing the KPI regime and making it rigorous, the Secretary of State could at a stroke remove a large proportion, if not all, of public procurement from that KPI obligation simply by arbitrarily lifting the threshold. This is a process that should not be left to the Secretary of State alone; that is what Amendment 275A refers to.
Furthermore, Amendment 276ZA would ensure that the regulations could be used only to reduce the threshold, not increase it. I must say, it is ingenious; I would not have thought of it on my own account. These are well-worded and reasoned amendments. I am sure that, if the Minister were not at the Dispatch Box, the Back-Bench version of her would have been making this speech because these amendments are of course hers. When she was promoted, she swiftly withdrew them. Because I agree with them and think that they are good amendments—I did not do this simply to have some fun; these are important issues—I put them back in for your Lordships to consider. The threshold at which the KPIs are published is absolutely central to whether we have a KPI system that works. It is important that Parliament is left with the right to do that.
I shall speak to another gem: Amendment 272 in the names of my noble friends Lord Wallace and Lord Scriven and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I will not speak at length. In previous debates, Ministers have argued against adding principles and things to this Bill, but central to the Green Paper was a section on the principles of public procurement. The Government
accept that there should be principles here and have advanced some, so putting into the Bill the principle that procurement should help local communities with the deployment of sustainable local improvement would seem to be central to what this Government want to do, especially given their stated aim of bringing local communities and the quality of life in them up.
I also associate myself with my noble friend Lord Scriven’s speech on Amendment 353AA; it sounds more like a battery than an amendment. I look forward to his further speech on that.
Finally, I want to say a word in favour of the amendments in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Mendelsohn and Lord Aberdare, which seek to address further the pernicious practice of late payment. This is the Procurement Bill and it is about public procurement. It is unthinkable to me that this Bill and the Act that will follow do not have something to say about late payment and something to improve this activity. Whether it will be along the lines of the noble Lords’ proposal, I do not know, but these are important points. This seems to be a genuine opportunity for the Minister. This is a cross-party concern. I am sure that the Minister, working with others, can come back on Report with something that will further stiffen the process. I suggest that the process of publishing, as set out by the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, would be a very good way of starting so that we can at least see where the poor behaviour lies.
I hope that, in the post-Committee quiet, the Minister can scrutinise where we are with all these amendments and come forward on Report with some sensible improvements based on them.