Procurement Bill: call for evidence

Aims of the Bill

The Procurement Bill would repeal the current EU law-based procurement regulations. It would lay out new rules and procedures for central government departments, their arms-length bodies and the wider public sector when selecting suppliers and awarding contracts with a value above certain thresholds. It would also make provisions for smaller, below-threshold contracts.

The Procurement Bill as brought from the House of Lords and introduced in the House of Commons has 124 clauses arranged over 13 parts, and 11 schedules. The Bill contains a number of regulation-making powers.

Value for money and national strategic priorities

The Bill would introduce a new supplier selection regime, based on principles including non-discrimination, fair treatment, value for money, maximising public benefit, transparency, and integrity.  While value for money would remain the core objective of procurement, the Bill would require public sector buyers to take a broad view and take account of the national strategic priorities set out in the National Procurement Policy Statement (NPPS).

The NPPS asks public authorities to consider wider public benefits, such as creating new (local) jobs, tackling climate change, improving the diversity of their suppliers, and innovation throughout the procurement process. It also allows authorities to consider supporting local community priorities through public purchasing.

A single regime

The Bill would consolidate the current four sets of regulations, which transpose EU Directives into UK law, into a single regime. This would cover regulations for:

• public contracts, awarded by most central government departments, their arms-length bodies and the wider public sector including local government, health authorities and schools
• utilities contracts awarded by utilities operating in the water, energy and transport sectors. It would not cover private utilities operating on a competitive market
• concession contracts for the supply of works or services where public authorities give a supplier the right to exploit works or services
• defence and security contracts.

Devolved procurement

The Bill would apply to procurement by devolved authorities in Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland, however, would maintain its own legal framework, while the Bill would provide for arrangements covering joint and cross-border procurement with Scottish contracting authorities.

International obligations

The Bill would provide for the UK to meet its international obligations on public procurement included in treaties that it has signed. This includes the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA), the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) with the EU and a range of other agreements.

Approach of the Bill

The Bill would regulate the procurement process throughout the lifecycle of a contract: from the point when a public authority (a contracting authority) considers whether and what to buy, through the selection of bidders, weighting their bids, to awarding a contract, and monitoring performance up to its endpoint.

Enhanced transparency requirements under a new ‘noticing’ regime would span the full lifecycle of procurement. This would include publishing information about future procurement ahead of time, and publicising new contract opportunities, procurement results and information on contract performance.

The Government aims to establish a single platform for accessing procurement data, a public debarment list for excluded suppliers, a ‘tell us once’ system for supplier registration and other innovations.

Follow the progress of the Procurement Bill [HL]

The Procurement Bill was announced in the Queen’s speech of May 2022 and introduced in the House of Lords. The Bill completed the Lords stages on 13 December 2022 and entered the House of Commons on the following day. The Bill’s second reading in the Commons was held on Monday 9 January 2023.

• Bills before Parliament: Procurement Bill [Lords]
• Read Explanatory Notes: Procurement Bill [Lords]
• House of Commons Library Briefing Paper

There will be no oral evidence sessions.

Guidance on submitting written evidence

Deadline for written evidence submissions

The Public Bill Committee is now able to receive written evidence. The sooner you send in your submission, the more time the Committee will have to take it into consideration and possibly reflect it in an amendment. The order in which amendments are taken in Committee will be available in due course under Selection of Amendments on the Bill documents pages. Once the Committee has dealt with an amendment it will not revisit it.

The Public Bill Committee will scrutinise the Bill line by line. The first sitting of the Public Bill Committee is expected to be on Tuesday 31 January and the Committee is scheduled to report by Thursday 23 February. However, please note that when the Committee concludes its consideration of the Bill it is no longer able to receive written evidence and it can conclude earlier than the expected deadline of 5.00pm on Thursday 23 February. You are strongly advised to submit your written evidence as soon as possible.

Your submission should be emailed to scrutiny@parliament.uk

Further guidance on submitting written evidence can be found here.

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