My Lords, the other place has now been clear, for the second time, that it is firm in its position on this amendment. Noble Lords asked the Commons to reconsider, and it has reached the same decision.
The Bill creates new rules for suppliers and contracting authorities that will stay on the statute book for the foreseeable future. We therefore need to be measured and prudent in our approach and avoid imposing further unnecessary bureaucracy on UK businesses that duplicates both the existing provisions in the Bill and the steps being taken outside the legislation.
I commend the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for the debates he has led on organ harvesting. We share a unanimous view that organ harvesting is an abhorrent practice that has no place in our supply chains. Accordingly, if a supplier or one of its connected persons fails to comply with the established ethical or professional standards within its respective industry, including relating to the removal, storage and use of human tissue, the supplier could face exclusion on the grounds of professional misconduct. However, as far as I am aware, no supplier to the UK public sector has been involved in forced organ harvesting. Given that the exclusion grounds in the Bill have been selected based on the areas of greatest risk to public procurement, it is not necessary to single out organ harvesting in this Bill.
The Government are already actively addressing this awful practice. For example, it is an offence to travel outside the UK to purchase an organ, by virtue of new offences introduced by the Health and Care Act 2022. In addition, the Government continue to monitor and review evidence relating to reports of forced organ harvesting and maintain a dialogue with leading non-governmental organisations and international partners on this very important issue.
I make one further remark concerning an issue which, while out of scope of today’s debate, is of significant importance to this Bill and the country’s security. It relates to concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, following recent press coverage regarding surveillance equipment, which I look forward to discussing with him in person tomorrow. On 24 November 2022, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster made a Statement in the other place instructing government departments to cease deployment on their sensitive sites of surveillance equipment produced by companies subject to the National Intelligence Law of the People’s Republic of China.
During our last debate in this House, I set out the definition of “sensitive sites” to which our commitment would apply and which I am happy to reiterate today. As I said on 11 September, our commitment will apply to government departments and cover their sensitive sites, which are any building or complex that routinely holds secret material or above, any location that hosts a significant proportion of officials holding developed vetting clearance, any location routinely used by Ministers,
and any government location covered under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. I went on to reiterate that our commitment does not extend to the wider public sector. However, in no way is this an endorsement of the use of such surveillance equipment by these organisations or by organisations in the private sector. Indeed, these organisations may instead choose to mirror our action. I believe that some of them already have, including the police.
I beg to move.