My noble friend should not feel he has to apologise for responding to colleagues in Committee who raised a number of points. That is precisely what we are here for, and we are grateful to him for that; he did so extremely well, and it helped us to realise some of the important links in the Bill, how it is structured and why it is structured as it is. For example, the fact that we have for a long time been signatories to the Agreement on Government Procurement, the GPA, has been reflected in EU legislation; in the absence of EU legislation or carrying it forward as retained EU law, we want our own legislation, but the GPA does not apply in the United Kingdom unless we legislate for it. That is how our domestic legislation works, and we have to have a structure to do that.
Coming back to my Amendment 3, I had not understood that the GPA itself was the basis for the interpretation of whether universities are public authorities for these purposes. Happily, I do not think it will distress universities too much, as it is a continuation of their existing situation. When we look at exempted contracts, we see that research and development and employment contracts are out, which are probably their two main elements of expenditure. I should think they would be perfectly comfortable with that.
On that basis, I will not detain the Committee any longer. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 3.