My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, but I have a question for the Minister. As an example of the grouping of paragraphs and sections to which objection is taken, I point out that paragraph 17 of Schedule 2 refers to
“services of a kind specified in regulations made by an appropriate authority.”
The phrase “appropriate authority” occurs in all the paragraphs and measures that are under attack and is defined in Clause 111(1) as meaning
“a Minister of the Crown … the Welsh Ministers, or ... a Northern Ireland department”.
There is no mention of any of the Scottish Ministers.
5.45 pm
I may be missing something, but I cannot understand why the exemption regulation power being referred to does not include the ability for the Scottish Ministers to exercise a power with regard to contracts that are to be excluded. There may be a very simple answer to that and it may be my own fault for having failed to understand the reach of the legislation, but it applies without qualification to Scotland as well as to Northern Ireland and Wales and it seems odd, if these provisions remain unaltered, if the appropriate authority does not include Scottish Ministers.
I apologise to the Minister for springing a question of that kind on him. It may be that he would like to consider it and reply by letter at a later stage, but it puzzles me why Scottish Ministers are not included in the definition of “appropriate authority”.