I understand. I have tried to answer, although I am obviously somewhat limited by confidentiality. I would also draw the noble Lord’s attention to the Boardman report, of which he is well aware. Nigel Boardman went through the Covid processes and his comments were, on the whole, accepted. As I said, I will look at what the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said and see whether there is anything useful to add before we meet again on Wednesday.
I turn to my Amendment 34 and the comments made by my noble friend Lord Lansley, of Orwell, with whom I have had useful meetings. He is concerned that the procurement objectives in Clause 11 should apply to all procurement, not just to covered procurement. I am afraid I do not agree, as he and I have discussed. This is too wide-ranging and the Clause 11 objectives will not be relevant to the award of all types of non-covered procurement. The concept of procurement is crafted very widely and captures all contracts. For example, it is difficult to see how a contracting authority would be able to apply principles such as having regard to the importance of transparency or the wider public benefit in relation to employment contracts or leasehold agreements exempted under Schedule 2 to the Bill. In addition, it is difficult to see how a contracting authority could have regard to the importance of transparency in a procurement exempted on national security grounds.
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We have to be realistic about this. Of course contractors and suppliers must act with integrity—that point was made and I very much agree with it—but that is not a reason to change the whole shape of the Bill and put on contracting authorities new requirements that go very much wider than the sort of thing that we have debated. I hope the noble Lord can see the difficulties that the expansion of these obligations beyond covered procurement would create for contracting authorities, and I hope he will feel able not to press—