Public Procurement (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) (No. 2) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-14
Topic: International Affairs
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. On the last question, the fast ball which the noble Baroness bowled, I shall have to take advice on the extent to which the Government use electronic invoicing when they invoice. Of course, under the regulations, we will be obliged to process e-invoices if they arrive, but it is a good question and I shall make inquiries on the extent to which we are up to speed on e-invoicing As I said, I am grateful to all those who have taken part and will try to go through the questions asked—not necessarily in order. The noble Lord, Lord Beith, asked what would happen if there was an agreement. The answer is that the SI would indeed be suspended, probably by the withdrawal Act. It would be switched off, as with a lot of the other no-deal SIs which have already been passed The noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, asked about the plan for the UK public sector and the arrangements for publication of notices on the OJEU TED. The withdrawal agreement provides for publication of notices on that site. If there is no deal, the UK has developed its own UK e-notification that will be ready for exit date if it is needed. This is called the Find a Tender Service—FATS. Details were set out in the Explanatory Memorandum to the first EU exit instrument and published in a procurement publicity notice, the latest of which was published on 7 February My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe asked what the impact of the SI would be. The basic thrust of the SI is to ensure that there is no change, so, to the extent that there already is a problem, it makes it neither worse nor better: it is neutral. On the issue of public consultation, because the SI imposes no new regulatory burdens on UK businesses and as, as I said, its purpose is to maintain, in so far as possible, existing obligations on contracting authorities as regards suppliers, it has no direct impact on the public sector or the private sector, so it has been unnecessary to undertake consultation with industry. I shall come to my noble friend’s other points in a moment The noble Lord, Lord Beith, asked why this will come into force immediately before exit day, whereas everything else comes into effect on exit day. This SI comes into force immediately before exit day because it needs to amend the first SI before that one comes into force at the start of exit day, so we need to cancel the SI to which the noble Baroness referred before it comes into effect. That is why that has to be done the day before, but we hope that none of this will be necessary. The provision will expire after 18 months, after which guaranteed access will cease for suppliers from countries with which we have not made a continuity agreement My noble friend Lord Arbuthnot asked about last night’s vote. I hope that the Government will respect the decision of the other place. As my noble friend knows, the legal default in UK and EU law remains that the UK will leave the EU without a deal unless something else is agreed. We are planning for all eventualities with this SI, but I very much hope, as I am sure my noble friend does, that there will be an agreement and we will not need to leave without a deal. As former Members of the other place—as are a number of those who contributed to this debate—I am sure that we hope that the view expressed yesterday there will be respected The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and other noble Lords raised the issue of EU funds being available to support. As she said, no small business will be obliged to use e-invoicing. I am afraid that I do not have a direct answer to her question. The Government have guaranteed that certain grants paid out by the EU before we leave will be funded by the Government up to a certain date. I do not have the details to hand to say whether that guarantee applies to this particular funding issue but I undertake to write to noble Lords with the details. On whether certain invoices would go further down the queue if they were not e-invoices but paper ones, we have very strict rules about the prompt payment of invoices, whether they are e-invoices or paper ones. Certainly as far as the Government are concerned, there would be no such discrimination.