I think it has been agreed by all Members of the House that in certain emergency circumstances the Government need to be able to take action outside the normal procurement channels. If Clause 40 has that effect, that is fine, but Clause 40 also allows channels to be set up that include someone with whom you were at school, with whom you are best friends, who was your best man, who attended your wedding or whatever. How would we know? These things cannot be set out comprehensively in the Bill. This is a classic case of shutting a stable door after the horse has bolted.
4.45 pm
There seems to be a notion that the procurement review unit needs to be on a statutory basis because it will have some enforcement capacity. I doubt the need for a procurement review unit at all, but if the Government choose—among their many, multifarious activities—to ask a number of civil servants to monitor the way in which the Bill, if it becomes an Act, is being implemented, that is a perfectly legitimate thing for the Government to do. But it is a decision by the Government to ask their own civil servants to do something that appears relevant and important to them at the time, and the circumstances may change.
For example, the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, mentioned that the unit could monitor late payment. That would be a perfectly worthy thing to do, because late payment of invoices is currently an important matter. It might not be an important matter in future. It would be very strange to have this set in statute in this way. This is just a civil servant department; it does not require this statutory basis, because it will not have the enforcement powers that noble Lords seem to suggest.
Similarly, on Amendment 113, the desire to spell out an ever-longer list of persons covered by conflicts of interest has the same tendency, as I mentioned in relation to Amendment 72, to exclude—and, so to speak, exonerate—those not specified in the list. It is a potentially endless list by the time you have thought of everybody you might want to include.
I have spent more than 30 years in public life in one capacity or another; I do not boast about it, because many noble Lords have spent as long or longer. Throughout all that, I have understood that conflicts of interest will arise in the course of one’s activities. The key question is how one manages them in a way that requires sensitivity, flexibility and responsibility in each case. If I had intended to enter public life and conduct myself dishonestly—I assure noble Lords that I have endeavoured not to do so—I would have managed to achieve a degree of dishonest advantage, whether or not this had been spelled out in this essentially procedural Bill. If I had done so in a way that was clearly a breach of the criminal law, I hope I would have been prosecuted under the criminal law, under a wide range of offences available to prosecutors relating to corruption in public life. I would not look to this Bill, which would not be used in my case. I have made this point on several occasions: I think noble Lords are misconceiving the purpose and nature of the Bill as, in essence, a large enforcement framework.
I will make one final point before I sit down. A sense of proportionality is required as well. One has to remember that the Bill is intended to apply not only to
multi-billion contracts let by central government departments but to modest contracts let by local authorities and other, smaller public bodies that are caught within its net. One has to bear that degree of proportionality in mind at every stage.
I very much hope that these amendments are not pressed to a Division and that my noble friend will stand firm and not allow the Bill to be further distorted in this way.