Orders of the Day — Property Services Agency and Crown Suppliers Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 7:37 pm on 6 December 1989.

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Photo of Mr Dale Campbell-Savours Mr Dale Campbell-Savours , Workington 7:37, 6 December 1989

They were here all the time. In reply to my hon. Friend, the matter of Richmond terrace remains for those who study Hansard to read well into the future and I am sure that they will draw the same conclusion as I have. Richmond terrace is a very beautiful building, but it was a very nasty contract.

As I understand the arrangements within the Community, contracts can be awarded under open or restricted procedures or, in specified circumstances, under a negotiated procedure. In open procedures, all suppliers who are interested in the contract can submit tenders. In the restricted procedures, tenders are allowed only from suppliers who have been invited to participate. Negotiation procedures allow contracting authorites to negotiate with one or more suppliers of their choice. In certain, closely defined circumstances—and it is on these matters that the Minister will have to comment later—they can do so without prior publication of a tender notice. We may be looking at those areas tonight and I am sure that the Minister will want to be clear about them because we shall be checking to see whether his comment is strictly correct.

Except in such closely defined circumstances, there must be a call for competition by means of a prescribed tender notice published in the official journal of the European Community, allowing minimum time scales for responses by candidates or by tenderers. When a contracting authority makes an award, it is required to send a contract award notice to the journal for publication and to record details of the award for inclusion later in a statistical return.

On the technical specifications of the contracts, whether or not procurements are above the thresholds in the directive, the contracting authorities have obligations under article 30 of the treaty of Rome. The Commission takes the view that decisions of the European Court of Justice mean that where there are no European standards, contracting authorities must consider products from other member states manufactured to a different design, but having an equivalent performance on equal terms with products meeting national or other preferred standards.

There are special procedures for dealing with matters of urgency. The directive provides that purchasers may use the negotiation procedure without prior publication of a tender notice in so far as is strictly necessary when, for reasons of extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable by the purchaser, time limits laid down for the open and restricted procedures cannot be met. The circumstances involved must not be attributable to any part of the contracting authority.

The directive provides separately that when urgency makes the normal time limits impractical, the time limit for the receipt of requests to participate shall not be less than 15 days from the day of dispatch and that the time limit for the receipt of tenders shall not be less than 10 days from the date of the invitation to tender. Purchasers should not abuse these provisions—I hope that the Minister is listening—which the European Court, the Commission and, where relevant, other signatories to the Government procurement agreement are likely to give a narrow interpretation.

Many of my hon. Friends are concerned that European Court requirements, Commission requirements, parliamentary decisions and whatever has any connection with the European Community are issues that are too often discarded by this Government.