I am delighted to follow my noble friend with a few brief remarks. I say at the outset that I regret that I was unable to contribute to Second Reading. I shall limit my remarks today to my arguments probing why Clause 2 and Schedule 2 are part of the Bill. This raises a more general question as to why we actually need the Bill, as I understand that we are already in the GPA. We have had a number of Statements about this and discussions in this regard with the Minister responsible for trade, my noble friend Lord Grimstone. I would be grateful if my noble friend could elaborate on what I am about to put to him.
As I understand it, the purpose of the Bill is twofold: first, to reform the UK’s public procurement regime following our exit from the EU; and, secondly, to create a simpler, more transparent system that better meets the country’s needs rather than being based on transposed EU directives. I understand that we are to have a separate exercise where we go through all the retained EU law, when we come to what is euphemistically known as the Brexit freedoms Bill, to decide which of those retained EU directives we may wish to keep.
My understanding is that much of what is before us today, as my noble friend has explained, is already covered by the World Trade Organization Agreement on Government Procurement—the GPA, as it is called. The aim of that agreement is to mutually open government procurement markets to those party to that agreement. The threshold values are, curiously, almost identical to the thresholds that had to be met through our membership of the European Union, which was roughly €136,000. We are now looking at £138,760 as the threshold for the general agreements for goods; for services, it is the same amount and, for construction, it is £5 million-plus.
As my noble friend Lord Lansley rightly assumed, I am trying to ascertain through this debate the way in which public contracts can be defined. I am assisted in this regard by paragraph 16 of the Explanatory Notes, which sets out that:
“The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 will be repealed and new rules on procurement will be set out in the new regime. Most central government departments, their arms-length bodies and the wider public sector including local government, health authorities and schools will have to follow the procedures set out in the Bill in awarding a contract with a value above set thresholds to suppliers.”
If, for example, there is a public procurement contract for food, for vegetables and meat, for a local school, hospital, prison or some other public body, what is the procedure that will have to be followed after the adoption of the Bill and, more specifically, the regulations that will flow from it?
That is the specific question that I would like my noble friend the Minister to address. How will public procurement for contracts over the threshold be treated? For the purposes of the Act, will they be treated differently from those that already apply under the GPA? How will the contracts apply for those that are
under the magic threshold of £138,760? In effect, will the same procedures apply as before we left the European Union? I am particularly interested in food, fruit and vegetables, for the reason that we were all told this was going to be a benefit—a Brexit dividend from leaving the European Union—but I am struggling to see how this dividend will be delivered in this regard. When these contracts are put out for tender, whether they are above or below the threshold, how will that procedure apply? Can those that are under the stated threshold be awarded to local suppliers without being put out for international tender, or could we have Spanish or, indeed, African companies applying to deliver these?
I admit to being confused, because we were told that this was something that would happen after we left the European Union, and I am still struggling to see how these contracts are going to happen. We were told that it would boost local growers in this country to have these contracts put out for tender once we were no longer in the European Union. I look forward, with great anticipation, to my noble friend the Minister’s reply.