My Lords, many of my amendments and those to which I have added my name relate to the issue of promoting greater access to public procurement for small businesses, but for whatever reason none of them has come up in this group, so I will just make two brief points.
First, I very much support all the amendments in this group. I wonder whether they will successfully address the large-supplier focus of procurement hitherto and whether they will be enough to bring in those much smaller suppliers, many of which could make a real impact on the provision of, for example, personal services at a local level but which are often excluded on the ground of having too small an income or no track record of delivering high-value contracts, even when the contracts that they want to deliver are far lower than that and they have delivered them at that
level. So I suppose my question to the Minister is: how will the contracting authorities––local authorities or whatever—be dissuaded from imposing, or persuaded not to impose, thresholds and contract terms that actually deter or prevent some of those smaller enterprises from bidding? We have heard a lot about opening things up to small businesses, but unless you put restraints on the contracting authorities, those opportunities may not work.
Secondly, I very much welcome the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, although it was spoken to first by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. It seems to me that one of the elements that is lacking from the Bill is any indication of how its provisions will be monitored and enforced. How will we know that it is working? I strongly support the review proposed in Amendment 534. Six years seems to be rather a long time to wait, but on the other hand this process will take time to work through.
Beyond that, I hope the Minister says something about how the Government intend to monitor the effect and impact of the Bill, specifically including whether it is actually succeeding in unleashing the energy, dynamism, innovation and entrepreneurship that come from smaller suppliers, and what mechanisms there might be to resolve the issue if it turns out that is not happening. I do not think we can rely on the courts, and certainly these small businesses do not have the will, resources or even time and energy to pursue issues such as this in court. So what mechanisms might the Government be able to use when the system does not seem to be working?
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