My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group, but particularly those tabled by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. In his introduction, he emphasised the importance of rigour, accountability and transparency. I would add advance notice. The Minister who responds may say that it is all in the Treasury Green Book. It probably is, but anybody who has looked at small projects—localism, levelling up, town centres—will know that you have to comply with the Treasury rules, but it is hard to find them, especially for people who do not understand them too easily. My noble friend has put in this amendment and all the other things that go with it. It is really important in a Procurement Bill that people know what to expect and how to do it.
It also needs to be not confidential. I have a couple of examples. The first is an excellent example of the need for a business case. Some noble Lords may know that Cornwall Council was supporting a new stadium for football, rugby and everything else in Truro, which everybody seems to want, and there is private sector involvement. Last week, Cornwall Council decided that it was not going to do this and withdrew from it,
saying that there was no proper business case. That was brave, when everybody wants it, but there was no business case. At least it understood what was going on, but that is not the case for an awful lot of other people—I have mentioned the ferry to Scilly before, but will not mention that again—and the other side of it is things such as HS2, where the budget goes up through the roof.
My final question to my noble friend—I know he will do it for Report—and a few other people, concerns how you enforce these things when something goes wrong. That is the biggest problem that we have not solved yet. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.