My Lords, having taken over this crucial Bill from the now Leader of the House, I have had the pleasure of hearing a range of informed contributions from across the House on it. Noble Lords have offered a rich and stimulating debate in Committee and on Report, and I thank them for engaging constructively with what has at times been a challenging piece of legislation. As ever, I thank noble Lords for their forbearance with what I fear may be a record number of government amendments tabled in the Lords to help the Bill function optimally.
My objective in leading this Bill has been to ensure that it encourages a more open, effective and transparent public procurement while encouraging economic growth. One in every £3 of public money—some £300 billion a year—is spent on public procurement, yet at present we must wrestle with over 350 different procurement regulations across four different regimes. Noble Lords know my passion for paring back needless bureaucracy, in particular removing barriers for SMEs, and I know they have welcomed the new provisions I instigated to require contracting authorities to think about SMEs routinely. We have also put provisions in the Bill for the new single central online platform, which will underpin the new system and achieve a real step change in transparency.
This simplification of regulations is not at the expense of stringent, well-thought-out measures ensuring that procurement is done safely and appropriately in the relevant sector. Noble Lords will be aware of the national procurement policy statement, the procurement review unit and the debarment list. All these measures will make public procurement safe and ethical and take into account wider factors that I know many noble Lords right across the House care deeply about. These reforms are intended to provide a shift towards a modern and flexible procurement regime and deliver better outcomes for taxpayers, service users and the businesses and social enterprises involved.
Before I conclude, I would like to make noble Lords aware of an error on my part during the second day of Report, which I must correct. Amid the highly technical debate, I wrongly said that the national security exclusion ground was mandatory. In fact, it is discretionary. This is because it is desirable to have flexibility for contracting authorities considering exclusion on this ground, depending on the specific circumstances involved—for example, the nature of the threat to national security and/or the risk to the contract being tendered.
In concluding, I thank my noble friends Lady Bloomfield and Lady Goldie for their support on this Bill. I also extend particular thanks to my noble friends on the Back Benches for their contributions, challenge and support. I am very grateful to noble Lords on the Front Benches opposite and on the Cross Benches for their time and constructive engagement from the day I took the Bill over from my noble friend the Leader of the House. Finally, I thank the officials who have worked on the Bill, particularly Sam Rowbury, Ed Green, the previous Bill manager Phillip Dunkley and the current Bill manager Katrina Gajewska, as well as the wider official team, others supporting noble Lords across the House and my private office. I wish the Bill a safe passage through the other place.