The government’s haphazard approach to public spending puts Britain at risk

When I was growing up on a council estate in Brixton, government procurement wasn’t a term we used. But the impact of public spending in communities like mine is enormous. And the consequences of misspending by the Conservatives over the last decade is at the heart of so many of the difficulties faced by my community in Brixton and by communities across Britain. That’s why, as shadow minister in the Cabinet Office, I am so determined to use procurement as a force for good and treat every penny of taxpayers’ money with respect.

Procurement is the single biggest source of government spending. More than we spend on the NHS. Double the education budget. £295bn. From local authorities purchasing stationary to multi-billion pound defence programmes, we rely on procurement to keep the lights on and the country running – quite literally.

Getting procurement right means saving us all billions of pounds, delivering efficient public services and ensuring all those who win contracts act in a way that the public would expect of those receiving our money. But getting it wrong means the repeated delivery of services by suppliers who don’t work for the public good. Backlog Britain is the cost of bad procurement. And shoddy procurement means opening sensitive public services up to companies who threaten our values – and our national security.

The government’s procurement bill currently going through parliament is an opportunity to usher in a sea change in how we spend public money in this country. And there are positive steps in the right direction in the bill, such as the introduction of new transparency notices and a debarment register for suppliers deemed unfit to be given public money.

But the government’s haphazard and disorganised approach to this bill – after a record 350 government amendments, under a fourth Secretary of State and a third Prime Minister – has exposed loopholes that could lead to money being wasted and our supply chain being left vulnerable to threats from foreign states.

Labour believes that public money should be used to drive up standards of ethics and quality, support companies based in our communities and unlock opportunities and skills up and down the country.

During scrutiny of this legislation, Labour put forward amendments to make procurement a force for good and close the gaping gaps that exist in the bill – crucially on national security. Under its current drafting, a company found to be a national security threat could still be handed public money. We tabled an amendment to close that loophole.

Astonishingly, the government justified their rejection of our amendment by claiming that a company supplying paper clips should still be able to receive public money even if it was deemed to be a security risk. Apparently, national security considerations would create unnecessary barriers in this situation. I know my constituents wouldn’t want their taxes to be given to companies that pose a national security threat, whether this money is for security cameras or paper clips.

Similarly, the government amended the bill to remove a safeguard that would enable public bodies to exclude companies linked with forced organ harvesting. This is not hypothetical. Evidence of this horrific behaviour has been found by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which stated that these serious human rights violations have been committed in the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region. We were rebuffed by ministers who appear to have lost their moral compass.

Today marks the last day of the committee stage on the procurement bill, where we are scrutinising line by line. This is a chance for the government to support Labour’s straightforward amendments to outlaw VIP lanes, which allowed for the shameful waste of taxpayers’ money and inexcusable profiteering by Tory cronies. It is a chance for the government to prioritise British businesses by directing British defence investment domestically in the first instance. And it is a chance to make the most of the post-Brexit opportunity to buy, make and sell more in Britain.

So far, from national security to organ harvesting, the government’s haphazard approach to public spending is putting Britain at risk. Labour will work to close loopholes exposing our critical national security and ensure value for money in every penny of public spending.