I was actually coming on to the rest of that but, with respect, the noble Lord asked me a specific question about government communications in his utterance; therefore I was responding to it.
Going further, in line with the existing exemption under the current regime, as provided for in the GPA, partner nations will typically agree to the rules for the award of contracts in a joint project by one or more of the partners in an international agreement. We cannot expect our international contracting partners, each with different national procurement procedures in some cases, to follow the specific procedural rules in this Bill. The ability to switch off the procedural rules in the legislation where there is a clash with what was agreed with the parties to the international agreement is essential to facilitate arrangements; however, I will clarify that further for the noble Lord. Again, I ask that this amendment be withdrawn.
I turn to Amendment 42, which relates to local authorities. I apologise for the length of my speech but a number of different themes came out here. Given my life and my having been involved in setting up joint arrangements with other authorities, I understand where the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, is coming from in seeking to add to and amend Clause 10 to make it explicit that a group of local authorities forming a consortium may constitute a centralised procurement authority. As an old local government hand, I do not particularly like that phrase; on the other hand, earlier, I cited the Yorkshire procurement arrangements as the type of thing that would be permitted and would be a centralised procurement authority.