My Lords, I am speaking to my Amendments 128 and 130, although the issues raised there have already been addressed by earlier speakers. I fully support the amendments spoken to by the Front Bench and Amendment 57 tabled by the Liberal Democrats.
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The discussion has centred on value for money and what it means. The starting point for all of us, I hope, is the Government’s Green Paper, which I think was widely welcomed. The introduction says:
“By improving public procurement, the Government can not only save the taxpayer money but drive social, environmental and economic benefits across every region of the country.”
So saving the taxpayer money is put alongside social, environmental and economic benefits; there is no issue of priority there. However, the executive summary of the Green Paper says that
“we want to send a clear message that public sector commercial teams do not have to select the lowest price bid, and that in setting the procurement strategy, drafting the contract terms and evaluating tenders they can and should take a broad view of value for money that includes social value”.
Putting it like that—that bodies should take a broad view of value for money—says to me that somewhere out there is a narrow view of value for money, and the use of the term “value for money” is uncertain as it depends on who is defining it. I am happy with what the Green Paper says, but where in the Bill and the statutory statement are we assured that it will be this broad view, which we all agree with, rather than a narrow one?
We have moved on from the Green Paper and we have had the Government’s response, which carried those forward, but now we are presented with the Bill. We are always told that the Explanatory Notes are not the Bill, but it is worth looking at what they say because they reveal what is in the Government’s mind. Paragraph 10 says:
“place value for money at their heart”—
that is, at the heart of the process. Again, we have to focus on what is meant by “value for money”. I very much hope that the Minister will give us an assurance that the Government take the broad view of value for money, but if that is the case, why can we not have it in the Bill? The issue is: why is the broad view of value for money not incorporated in the Bill?
There is another note in the Explanatory Notes that refers to the award criteria and makes me nervous. My amendment is to Clause 22—I have leapt forward. I want it to be absolutely clear in that clause, which sets out those criteria, that price does not have priority. That is what I take the broad view of value for money to mean. I am scared that a future Government over whom we had no control could use what was in the Act to give priority to price as opposed to the different criteria. Even if the Minister gives us excellent assurances that this Government are sticking by what is in the Green Paper, unless it is in the Bill we cannot rest confident that it will achieve what we want.
My Amendment 130, which would be the substantive change, may well be technically defective but would require an assurance that the different criteria—price and the objectives set out in Section 11—should have equality of regard. That is what I am looking for in the wording of the Bill, and that is what my amendment seeks to do.