My Lords, we supported the introduction of the Procurement Act and we recognise that, following our departure from the EU, the opportunity arose to reshape the way that procurement is regulated in the UK. There are some steps that we particularly welcome, such as the transparency measures in the central digital platform, and steps to make procurement more straightforward for smaller businesses and social enterprises.
However, as my friend Nia Griffith MP, the shadow Minister in the Commons, said when this was discussed there last week, we maintain the view that this Act was something of a missed opportunity. Can the Minister
outline for us what, in this new flagship procurement legislation, would prevent scandals such as the PPE VIP lane from happening again in the future?
I listened carefully to the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Fox, about NHS procurement and the need to share the expertise of the Cabinet Office with the Department of Health and Social Care. I would be interested in the Minister’s response to that, as it speaks to issues with working across government and between departments, which we understand can be tricky. However, in this instance, there seems to be a special role for the Cabinet Office to assist in preventing problems from arising in the future. We never want to see a repeat of the situation in which friends and party donors are given the first bite of the cherry, while decent, skilled local businesses are denied the same opportunity. It is difficult to see anything in the regulations that would specifically prevent these problems, so it would be useful to hear from the Minister. I assume, because I expect she was asked this repeatedly during passage of the Bill, that she can outline her Government’s position on this point.
Although we are disappointed on that specific issue, we hope that the Act serves what is probably a shared aim across all parties: to simplify and encourage more involvement from businesses that are the backbone of our economy, especially in the regions and nations of the UK where access to government contracts has been more challenging. We want to see wealth shared more fairly across the country, with businesses that employ local people and spend in their local economies given the same chance as other large businesses.
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How successful these new regulations are at encouraging SMEs to participate will depend to a great extent on how straightforward the central digital platform is to deal with. Can information be found easily, can necessary documents be uploaded easily and, as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, asked, can that be done once rather than someone having to input the same information again and again? With that in mind, can the Minister say anything about what expertise in user experience has been applied to this project?
No one can accuse the Government of rushing into this, but a steady pace, shall we say, does not necessarily guarantee that businesses will know about the new regulations. Can the Minister give us some information about what is being done to explain and promote the changes? Can she let us know who, and which agencies, we should look to in order to see how this is being done so that we can judge its effectiveness?