I thank the noble Lord for his comments and I am sure that I will get my pen out and start writing as soon as I have consulted with the gentlemen sitting behind me. On a slightly more serious note, I am sure that we will have meetings with the Bill team and people from the MoD.
I turn now to the amendments. Amendment 22A would place a statutory duty on the SSRO when performing its review of the single-source framework to consult with industry and to publish the results of the consultation exercise. As noble Lords will be aware, many aspects of the single-source framework under Part 2 will lie in regulations rather than in primary legislation, and many of the clauses in this part give the Secretary of State the power to make those regulations. This is to allow the regulations to be periodically updated to take into account changes in procurement approaches, the defence sector and what is being procured, without the need for primary legislation. I reassure noble Lords that we are aware that the new single-source framework represents an important change to single-source procurement. We have been consulting closely with the industry throughout the development of Part 2, including the Bill and the detail of the regulations.
In October 2011, the noble Lord, Lord Currie, published his report and we subsequently ran a full public consultation which completed in January 2012. In April of that year we started a defence suppliers’ forum subgroup with our top 10 single-source suppliers. These included BAE Systems, Finmeccanica, Rolls-Royce, Babcock, Thales, MBDA, QinetiQ and others. Over the past two years we have met with them more than a dozen times to share our proposed approach and understand their concerns. Beneath this forum we also established a number of technical working groups on specific matters such as confidentiality, the SSRO and risk, and most recently on the regulations themselves. In January alone this year we spent four full days discussing the draft regulations line by line with industry, and we expect further such discussions before the summer. This is a substantial level of consultation, more than is typical for new government policy, and it has resulted in our making some important changes to our framework, such as introducing the new criminal offence to protect industry information.
It is certainly not in our interests to create an unworkable framework. For one thing, we pay for any additional overheads our suppliers will incur, which will be incorporated into their single-source prices, provided that they are reasonable. We also need the capability they provide and have no desire to make it hard to do business with the MoD. Indeed, it is out of a desire to ensure that the framework is as practical as possible that we have consulted with industry to the extent that we have. Industry cannot claim that it has not been consulted prior to the first regulations being made.
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Returning to the amendment, we also want the new framework to be kept up to date. We do not want to end up again in the situation in which we find ourselves now: namely, with a framework that is 45 years old, clearly out of date and not fit for purpose. That is why we have introduced a statutory duty for the SSRO to keep the framework under review at all times, not just at the end of the five-year review period. This is set out in Clause 39.
In making recommendations, the SSRO will follow a rigorous process. First, it will draw upon its experience of monitoring and analysing single-source procurement. It will talk to suppliers, the MoD and other interested parties, such as trade bodies. It will draw up its recommendations and publish these. It will then conduct a full public consultation, following the relevant Cabinet Office guidelines and only then, once the results of all of this feedback are taken into account, will it formulate their recommendations.
This process will be set out in the framework document between the MoD and the SSRO. All executive non-departmental public bodies have a framework document which sets out detailed aspects of the relationship between the body and the sponsoring department, such as payment provisions. This framework agreement will be in the public domain and, as part of our ongoing engagement with industry on the SSRO, we will be sharing the draft framework agreement with industry prior to its publication.
I hope that the Committee agrees with me that the SSRO will be following an open and comprehensive consultation process in recommending changes to the regulations. I am aware that this is not written out in the Bill. However, this is a detailed procedural matter, so it is not necessary so to do. However, I assure the Committee that there is no intent to lay down regulations without consulting industry beforehand. I am confident that the SSRO will take its role very seriously, and consult with all appropriate parties. We did not feel it was necessary to put a statutory duty on them to consult with industry, any more than we did to require them to consult with the MoD. I hope I have reassured noble Lords that industry will always be appropriately consulted.
Amendment 23B would provide for regulations under Clause 33 to be subject to the affirmative procedure. Regulations under Clause 33 have always been subject to the affirmative procedure; they are under the current Bill drafting, and they remain so under government Amendment 23. We therefore agree with the intent of this clause, but it is not now required if government Amendment 23 is accepted. I hope this explains our position on this group of amendments, and I urge the noble Lord not to move Amendments 22A and 23B.