Oh, the noble Baroness is there; I was looking for her in the place in which she sat on Monday. She moved, just to confuse me. This is the trouble with picking things up later.
The noble Baroness rightly said that meeting net zero is a government-stated objective and we believe, as she does, that this should also be an objective within the Procurement Bill. It could make a genuine difference, should that be something that needs to be taken account of. We also support those noble Lords who said in the debate that this helps to meet the levelling-up agenda as well as achieving net zero.
We know that social value is included in the NPPS—the national procurement policy statement—so I ask the Minister: if it is in the policy statement, why is it not referenced in the Bill? It concerns me that the policy statement can be changed at any point, so not having it in the Bill and just having it in the statement means that it is not absolutely embedded within the legislation.
I will briefly mention that, between 2012 and 2020, there was no statutory guidance on social value. This inhibits its development, so we need to ensure that this does not happen in future.
I express strong support for Amendments 49 and 58 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, which are about climate and environmental matters and the importance of having these based within the Bill. She also said that “public benefit” needs further clarity, so I must ask again: does “public benefit” include environmental outcomes? It would be helpful to have further information on this. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, spoke importantly about the fact that using procurement in this way is an opportunity to drive behaviour change, because we are not going to achieve the Government’s net-zero objectives without behaviour change.
Amendment 45 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, specifies a number of overarching requirements that a contracting authority must take due regard of when carrying out procurement. We support the main points that he made—particularly, as well as the carbon account, the ethical and human rights record of the supplier, as he said. I know that we will talk about this in a later debate, but that is important.
Amendment 53 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, which the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, introduced, again talked about defining “public benefit”. I think that the Minister can see that this is not party political: right across the Committee there is concern about what “public benefit” means and what it is going to deliver as part of the Procurement Bill. The noble Lords, Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Purvis, also tabled amendments on this issue.
I finish by briefly mentioning an interesting briefing that I had from UKCloud. I do not know if other noble Lords have received it, but it is about the importance of maximising social value through procurement in the world that UKCloud works in—the cloud providers—and how doing so would be consistent with wider net-zero policy aspirations. UKCloud feels that it is important to support businesses in this country that are providing those kinds of platforms and support and that the sector can lead in the provision of clean, green technologies, which can help to digitise and decarbonise users of its services. It also believes that, if the sector got that kind of support from government, UK businesses would have the opportunity to really innovate and become leaders in this field. I found that an interesting briefing. If the Minister has not seen it, I would be happy to share it with him, because it had some interesting thoughts in it. The briefing also said that UKCloud feels that weighting should be given to make sure that cloud providers for the UK Government are paying their taxes in full on all earned income in the UK—that is an important point—and that they should have a clear and measurable track record of investing in local jobs and skills. The briefing has some interesting points about how procurement could help its particular type of business. I finish there and I look forward to the Minister’s response.