My Lords, I rise to speak on Amendment 73 as my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones is detained in Grand Committee. This amendment requires direct-award contracts included in a framework agreement to be retendered 18 months after the award. This amendment takes a different route from the one we discussed in Committee, but the aim is the same: to prevent direct contracts being used within framework agreements to restrict competition from British SMEs and reinforce the dominance of certain key foreign players in the market. The Minister will remember that we used cloud computing as a major example of where the system has gone off the rails. The SME share of the market has fallen from more than 50% to just 20% in the past five years. In this respect, there is little sign that the Procurement Bill is in reality designed
to provide new opportunities to prevent this slide towards—shall we call it “oligopoly”, to coin a phrase that was used by the noble Lord, Lord Maude, in a different context?
Rather than preventing such awards, as we attempted last time, we have instead put down an amendment to time-limit the awards. This would introduce a duty to retender, after 18 months, direct contracts awarded as part of a framework agreement under Clauses 38 and 41. This would provide the opportunity to redress the balance and help support UK SMEs. In Grand Committee, the Minister said that my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones had made a lot of points that she was not aware of and promised to study in relation to the important areas of cloud computing and UK businesses. She also emphasised some of the advantages of framework agreements. We are not arguing with that, but that is not the point. This is about detriment to SMEs through the use of direct contracts which are hidden within framework agreements. The problem can be cured. The Minister also said in relation to these agreements that it makes sense for them to be time-limited. I hope she has studied the words of my noble friend and has something to offer that limits the duration of direct contracts that are made within framework agreements.