My Lords, I shall be very brief, as time is ticking away. I start by saying that we completely support Amendment 436 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. It is really important to get proper reassurance and clarification in this area, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give that to us today.
We also absolutely support what Amendment 441, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, is trying to do. Environmental, social and labour conditions are incredibly important when looking at who you are procuring with. The noble Lord introduced it very thoroughly, so I will not go into any further detail, but he is absolutely right that we need clarification on this.
One thing I have found with this Bill is that different bits are cross-referenced all the way through and, on occasion, I have got somewhat confused, to say the least. This might not be important at all but I ask for some clarification. Schedule 9 is on the various parties with which we have trade agreements, and we have been talking about trafficking, slavery, exploitation and so on, which are all mentioned in Schedule 7. We welcome the fact that Schedule 7 covers all these areas, but paragraph 2 of that schedule says that engaging in conduct overseas that would result in an order specified in paragraph 1—trafficking, exploitation, modern slavery
and so on—if it occurred in the UK constitutes a discretionary ground for exclusion from procurement. Does that conduct overseas, as referred to in Schedule 7, cover anything that happens with procurement coming out of a trade agreement? That is what I do not understand. If it does, it alters what we have just been talking about. If it does, how does that operate and how is it enforced? Who manages it? If it does not, how do we address that when we are negotiating trade agreements in order to achieve the outcomes that we would all like to see? It may be that the Minister does not know and needs to talk to officials, but that is something on which I would like clarification.