estic level are also global issues, and we should be seeking to address them. Obviously, a procuring authority, a contracting authority, may not have access to all of the relevant information about global impacts when it is making a decision. As far as I can see, the bill prohibits them from taking that information into account by saying disregarding any areas outside Scotland. The amendment simply seeks to allow those decisions to be fully informed by information about global impacts that are available at the time when decisions are being made. I move amendment 44. Many thanks. No other members asked to speak, so I call the Deputy First Minister. Thanks to Patrick Harvie for lodging this amendment. I absolutely agree with him on the importance of recognising and understanding the global impact of procurement. He is right to point to the fact that we have made changes at stage 2, specifically in relation to fair trade. I am very happy to speak further with the fair trade forum about any concerns that it has. Clearly, we were anxious to respond to the issues that it raised, but in a way that was appropriate. I think that we have done that in terms of some of the changes that we have made. Before I go on to what I was going to say, I think that the point that he referred to that the BMA has made is a good illustration of the general point that he is trying to make. There is nothing in the bill, as it currently stands, which prevents public bodies from acting in a manner to secure improvements of economic, social and environmental wellbeing, wherever they may arise. A point that I made at stage 2 was that, specifically, the bill, as it stands, does not prevent an authority from taking account of wider global or international issues if it considers that appropriate. However, section 9 places a duty on public bodies. It is therefore right that we ensure that the duty that we are placing on public bodies strikes the right balance, one that is both proportionate and manageable in a meaningful way at a practical level, and that is what section 9, as it is currently drafted, seeks to do. The amendment that Patrick Harvie is putting forward, my concern about it, is that the scope is so wide. For example, it could lead to challenges against a public body, that that public body failed to consider a perceived benefit that might accrue from literally anywhere in the world. A duty that is being placed on a public authority that has a scope quite as wide of that does make it very difficult for public authorities to discharge their duties in a way that they can be reasonably confident that it does not open them up to legal challenge. That is not to say that I do not think that we have an obligation to address the issues that Patrick Harvie has talked about today. I repeat the offer that I made to him at stage 2 to discuss how we can use the statutory guidance that is going to underpin the sustainable procurement duty to try to encapsulate what are perfectly legitimate points that he is making about the wider implications of procurement exercises. That is particularly relevant when we are talking about large procurement exercises. I hope that he would take me up on that offer. I think that he makes legitimate points, but the translation of his argument into the specific amendment 44 that he has put forward today would result in legislation that was drafted so widely that it would hinder, rather than help, public authorities. I think that there is a more effective way that we can try to deliver the ends that he is rightly talking about in the chamber today. I have a late bid from Mark Griffin. Very briefly, please, and then I'll ask the Deputy First Minister if she wishes to say anything further. I apologise for being slow but, as Patrick Harvie mentioned, the amendment removes disregarding any areas outside of Scotland from the definition of a contract in the authorities area. We will not be supporting the amendment. We feel that the amendment would be too vague to implement in practice and would make the scope of a contract in authorities area too uncertain. We agree with the principles and we have tabled amendments around global sustainability, taking into account environment, fair trade and other issues, but, as I said, I just think that that is not a practical step and that it is a burden too far for local authorities. Thank you, Deputy First Minister. Do you want to add in further? In that case, I call Patrick Harvie to wind up and indicate an intention to press her with draw, please. Thank you. I am sorry that the Government and indeed the Labour Party as well do not seem to be open to that argument. It seems to me that the central part of the Deputy First Minister's argument against the amendment is that it would be very difficult to take account of impacts anywhere in the world, but that surely is what we need to do if we are going to have an approach to sustainability which is global. That is the intention that the Deputy First Minister seems to be agreeing with, but the practical reality, of course, will be difficult. Of course, it will be challenging, but that is the task at hand. It does seem to me that we either need to set that challenge to ourselves and to public bodies or not. I would like to press the amendment, but assuming that the Government's support is as robust as it seems to be today, I will be happy to have a discussion with the Deputy First Minister after the bill has passed to see if there are other approaches to the amendment. The amendment has been pressed. The question therefore is that amendment 44 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Palant is not agreed. There will be a division. This is a one-minute division. Please vote now. The result of the vote on amendment 44 is yes, eight, no, 109. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. It brings us to group 12, which is the final group. If members are brief, we may be able to keep to the timings as indicated. I call amendment 28, in the name of Tavish Scott, group with amendment 29. I ask Tavish Scott to move amendment 28 and speak to both amendments in the group. I thank James Kelly for giving us an earing at stage 2 and indeed his own amendment in this group. This amendment would ensure that procurement provisions that we are agreeing to today cover the spending of £1 billion of taxpayers' money. Government created the Scottish Futures Trust, which in turn created a financial model known as Hubcos, who build schools and hospitals. Hubcos are managed and led by large private sector businesses, businesses who make profit and charge management fees for building a school or indeed a health centre. However, it appears that neither the taxpayer, Parliament or Audit Scotland know how much profit or what fee is levied. I would wish to suggest that financial secrecy needs to be replaced with financial transparency that the Deputy First Minister rightly described in her opening speech in introducing this bill to Parliament. Scotland's five Hubcos are led by 15 main corporate businesses. Small businesses in Scotland, builders, surveyors, small construction companies, architects can only hope to be a subcontractor under this arrangement or indeed a subcontractor of a subcontractor. Hubcos, therefore by definition, exclude thousands of Scottish businesses from tendering for work. That means that Parliament and Audit Scotland do not know whether we achieve value for money. That under the Hubco model is never indeed tested. There is no tender, for example, to build the six schools in the north of Scotland by the miller-led north Hubco. Again, there is a lack of financial transparency and a belief that economies of scale may deliver better value for money, but we simply do not know how much profit, for example, will miller group make on the building of those six schools. Parliament simply doesn't know what management fee is miller group receiving for this contract. Again, Parliament does not know. Hubcos are not financially accountable despite the vast amount of public money being spent across Scotland on projects that we, of course, would all wish to see happen. Will Hubco businesses be subject to Parliament's policy on the living wage and community benefit that we've just discussed this afternoon? They surely should be. Finally, could I ask Parliament to consider the views of the Federation of Small Businesses, Andy Wilex, who said on this issue, on Hubcos, just this week? I'm astonished that the Scottish Government is deliberately excluding so much taxpayer-funded buying from the scope of their reforms. We are urging MSPs to look again at the legislation and ask if it is really appropriate for us to turn a blind eye to the purchasing practices of arm-length bodies and Hubcos. The Federation of Small Businesses is supportive of the bill, but they see it as an area that needs to be addressed. I hope that the Government, even at this late stage, given its very fair observations about the importance of financial accountability, would extend that to the particular group of organisations. Many thanks. James Kelly, to speak to amendment 29 and other amendments in the group, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I rise to support amendments 29 and 28 in this group. The premise of the procurement bill is good procurement practice, covering the £10 billion of public contracts. Therefore, it seems strange that it doesn't cover the issue of Scottish water. Scottish Water has a £500 million capital expenditure programme, and last year, it had revenue expenditure of £837 million. In relation to the CAPEX, there is contribution to that in terms of the Government's loan. This is public money flowing through Scottish Water. It is right not only that there is accountability around that, but we are able to influence it through the processes in the bill. Similarly, the Scottish Futures Trust is just, as Tavi Scott correctly pinpoints, a £1 billion of public expenditure. That would be an additional tenth of the money that the bill already covers. There are real issues around accountability for how the money is spent. Some of the claims made by the Scottish Futures Trust in relation to savings. In relation to those particular amendments, there is a weakness in the bill if those amendments are not included, because not only is the expenditure then not accountable for that. It also means that all the other provisions that we are trying to bring forward in the bill in relation to areas such as blacklisting, zero hours and contracts are not covered. It is a real glitch that those amendments are not included, and I would urge support for both amendments. Failure to include the SFT hubcos in Scottish Water in the list of organisations in the schedule was a surprise to many. During the course of the process through committee to this stage today, the questions have been asked and re-asked about why they are not there. The matter has been addressed, to some extent, in the letter that was written by the Deputy Presiding Officer to Maureen Watt, convener of the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee, in which she points out that, by agreement, Scottish Water will abide roughly by the rules that exist here and that the SFTs have agreed to do some or the hubcos have agreed to do something similar. Therefore, begs the question, why are they not included on the list of organisations that will be covered? I think that the question has been asked repeatedly. It has never been answered to my satisfaction, and for that reason I will support the amendments today. It would be helpful, no doubt, to explain, as I have done at previous stages of the bill, why hubcos and Scottish Water are not included in its ambit. Hubcos, first of all—I should say just as an observation to Tavish Scott, although I am sure that he will correct me if my recollection is wrong here—I seem to recall that the concept of hubcos was first developed by the previous administration and taken forward by it, but hubcos are not public bodies, they are institutionalised private public bodies. Their private partners are procured after open competitive processes. Scottish Water is publicly owned, but Scottish Water is subject to a very different regime of EU legislation. The bill, regulations and guidance will be drafted to dovetail with EU public procurement rules. Indeed, the bill currently does this in relation to Scottish Water by excluding utilities contracts, which is consistent with the existing EU procurement law approach, because it is subject to a separate legal regime. Applying the bill to a body that is subject to a different EU law framework would create considerable complexity and create some risk for all concerned, as it would require work with two very different EU legal regimes. That said, at stage 2, I undertook to write to the committee after further dialogue with both the Scottish Futures Trust and Scottish Water, which I did on 6 May. I sent that letter to the committee. The letter makes clear that SFT intends to work with hubcos to encourage them to adopt the good practice in the bill where that is appropriate. Indeed, I should point out to the chamber that that is already happening in a number of areas, including community benefit clauses, being one example of that. She will be away from correspondence that we have had in relation to the point that Tavish Scott was making about the involvement of smaller firms within constituencies that he and I, others in this Parliament, represent. The notion of Scottish Water using regional rural frameworks might be a way of getting around that, having the transparency that both James Kelly and Tavish Scott were referring to, but allowing more of an involvement of companies in the multiplier effect that that brings to our local economies to be used. I am more than happy to discuss the issue relating to Scottish Water with the member if he would find that helpful. If I am understanding his point correctly, I would point out that there is nothing in the bill that prevents the use of framework contracts, so I am not sure that his point necessarily hangs together in that respect, but if I have misunderstood him, I am more than happy to engage further with him. I was pointing out that, in relation to SFT and hubcos, a number of areas covered by this bill already are in use community benefit clauses being the example that I would cite. With regard to Scottish Water, it has also provided an assurance that it supports the general principles of the bill and will continue to adhere to its key components. Again, I would highlight that Scottish Water already does adhere to many of the key components of this bill. It advertises via the Public Contract Scotland website. It uses standard pre-qualification questionnaires. It uses community benefit clauses in its major contracts. Those are all issues that the bill addresses that Scottish Water is already adhering to, even though it is not part of the overall framework of the bill. I would ask Tavish Scott to withdraw amendment 28, James Kelly not to move amendment 29 and to ask the chamber not to support either of those amendments. I thank you very much. I call Tavish Scott to wind up and indicate an intention to press her with draw, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I take the Deputy First Minister's remarks in relation to some of the provisions of the bill that she has just described apply to some of those bodies, and that is progress. What I thought was interesting is that the Deputy First Minister did not respond to the major concern that I think many of us have, and that is financial accountability to this Parliament. I would hate to repeat all the same points, but we do not know because of the structure of these hubcalls. I am not saying that this structure was right whenever it was introduced. I take a point about when it was introduced. Whenever it was introduced, it was right. We do not know how that can deliver value for money. We do not know when schools are put into the programme that we achieve value for money, because there is not a tender at that stage. That seems to me in the Government's interest to seek to do that. Therefore, if the hubcall model is not achieving that, perhaps that should be considered from first principles. For many of the reasons that James Kelly, Alec Johnson and others have expressed, it does appear to me to be a fundamental point that £1 billion of public spending should be included in the provisions of this bill, and that is one that we should support. Many thanks. Members will note that we have passed a agreed time limit for the debate on this group to finish, and I exercised my power under rule 9.8.4AC to allow the debate on the group to continue beyond the limit in order to avoid the debate being unreasonably curtailed. However, the question now is that amendment 28 be agreed to. Are we all? The question is that amendment 28 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. This will be a one minute division. Please vote now. The result of the vote on amendment 28 is, yes, 56. No, 61. There were no abstentions. Amendment 29 is therefore not agreed to. I now call amendment 29, in the name of James Kelly, already debated with amendment 28. I ask James Kelly to move or not move. The member has moved. The question therefore is that amendment 29 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Palms is not agreed. There will be a 30-second division. Please vote now. Order. The result of the vote on amendment 29 is, yes, 56. No, 61. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. That ends consideration of amendments. Can I ask members leaving the chamber to do so as quickly and quietly as possible, please? The next item of business is a debate on motion number 10005, in the name of Nicola Sturgeon, on the Procurement Reform Scotland Bill. Members who wish to participate in this debate should press the request to speak buttons now. I notify the chamber that we are tight for time. I therefore call on Nicola Sturgeon to speak to and to move the motion. Deputy First Minister, if you could do so in around eight minutes, I'd be most grateful. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I begin this debate by thanking all those who have contributed to the development of this bill. I want to thank members from across the chamber. A range of stakeholders, stakeholders with an interest in procurement from various different perspectives, have contributed hugely to our procurement reform agenda. I know that we will continue to do so, and I am very grateful to them. I also want to thank the infrastructure and capital investment committee, whose scrutiny of the bill has led to a significant number of improvements. Lastly, if I can place on record my thanks to my own officials and the bill team, who have worked very hard on what is, at times, a very technical and very complex area of law. It is fair to say that, as the bill has progressed through the parliamentary process, it has stimulated some very passionate and lively discussion. That is a good thing. What I want to do in those remarks, though, is focus on what I believe is a remarkable degree of consensus about what our ambitions should be in relation to public procurement. All of us across party divides support the broad aims of the bill, which are to ensure that the £10 billion every year that the public sector spends in Scotland is spent wisely and it is spent fairly, and to ensure that we use that spending wherever we possibly can to generate additional benefits for our communities, for our businesses and for our citizens, and indeed for the wider world, which is something that Patrick Harvie sought to highlight in some of his own amendments. The bill contains a strong statement of intent that good procurement practice must mean thinking about the bigger picture when planning a procurement exercise. The new general duties in the bill will help to achieve that and the greater transparency that the requirements on advertising, contract registers and published strategies will deliver will help to understand how procurement is performing and what it is delivering or not delivering and enable us to take action if the latter is the case. Jackie Baillie's amendment, which was agreed today, will include national reports to Parliament and will help us to ensure that we are able to monitor performance and strive for ever greater results. As we debate the bill, it is important that we remember that procurement must continue to deliver value for the taxpayer. The Scottish model of procurement, as it has increasingly been recognised, has at its heart the need to strike the best balance of cost, quality and sustainability. Delivering savings, reducing waste and improving quality through innovation are all vitally important objectives for our public services and are at the heart of what professional procurement staff are employed to deliver. The bill needs to help them to perform that important role and not hinder them in doing it. We have also got to remember that the public bodies that we are asking to embrace the requirements in the bill already have a complex and demanding set of rules that they must comply with in relation to the overarching European law and procurement. In framing the bill, we have had to work hard. I know that this has not always been popular when I have used this explanation to keep the new rules as simple and as easy to understand as we can and to keep them compliant with EU law. Perhaps it is a sign that I am an eternal optimist, but I will take it as a sign that we have managed to strike a reasonable balance in this bill by the fact that there are some stakeholders who think that the bill does not go far enough and that there are an equal number of stakeholders who think that it goes far too far. Perhaps it is a sign that we have struck a balance. I believe that we all share the ambition that public procurement in Scotland should be business-friendly through standardising processes, streamlining bureaucracy and encouraging innovation. The business-friendly aspects of the bill are particularly important when it comes to small businesses, third sector organisations and supported businesses. I want to make sure that the bill delivers real improvements for them in terms of their ability to access public contracts. I believe that we also all want companies bidding for public contracts to conduct their business in an ethical manner. I certainly want it to be the case that only businesses that comply with their obligations in law are successful in winning public contracts and providing the power to make regulations and issue guidance on the selection of bidders and the exclusion of companies from the procurement exercises. The bill will address those issues and it will help us to ensure that only reputable companies win public contracts. I want to ensure to Parliament today that addressing issues such as the living wage, blacklisting, inappropriate use of zero-hours contracts and issues to do with promoting equality generally will all be central to how we frame the regulations and guidance that will underpin the legislation. I firmly believe that the bill will establish a national legislative framework for public procurement that is both business-friendly and socially responsible. It is not always easy. I remember saying in the debate at stage 1 of the bill that there are tensions running through this whole agenda that can often feel very difficult to reconcile, but we must reconcile it. It is important to emphasise both sides of the equation, business-friendly and socially responsible, so that we strike an appropriate balance. I believe that the bill does that, but the regulations and the guidance will of course be crucial to ensuring that we continue to get that right. I mentioned stakeholders at the outset. The contribution of stakeholders in the next stages of the process will be extremely important in making sure that both the commitments that I have given during the process about reflecting particular priorities and guidance are delivered and that we do that in a meaningful and robust way. We have had a huge number of responses over 250 as we have gone through the consultation on the bill, and we need to harness all of that expertise as we go into the next stage. I think that we have our will when we pass it later on. I hope that we will have delivered a piece of legislation that can make a big contribution to improving procurement performance and, importantly, that we will deliver those improvements without imposing unnecessary or disproportionate burdens or, indeed, opening our public bodies to substantial legal risk. On this occasion, as I have already alluded to, given that much of the bill is couched in terms of enabling powers and very deliberately so, stage 3 will feel perhaps more like the start of a process rather than the end of a process. As we work through the various pieces of regulation and guidance that the bill provides for, it will be important that we continue to engage comprehensively with all stakeholders. As I have said, I have also given a number of commitments to partnership and cross-party working, and I am happy to restate that the Government will continue to approach all of its work on procurement reform in a fully inclusive manner. I think that this bill is a good piece of legislation that will make a difference, but one of the other points that was made at an earlier stage of this bill is that legislation is but one part of our procurement reform agenda. It was never going to be the case that we could resolve all of the ills around procurement or some of the wider social and economic issues that we have touched upon in relation to the bill through this one piece of legislation. I think that we have done a good job in giving ourselves the tools to do so, but our wider programme of procurement reform continues to be very important. I think that Scotland is rightly gaining a good international reputation for its record and its work on public procurement. I think that this bill will contribute to that, but the work that comes after it in terms of the guidance and regulations and on our wider agenda will ensure that we continue to move forward to get better at it so that that £10 billion that we spend every year is spent well and in a way that delivers benefits right across our society. I am grateful to the First Minister for curtailing her speech, however I do have to notify backbench members that if I am to call everyone, I will have to give speeches of three and a half minutes. I now call on James Kelly at maximum seven minutes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome the opportunity to take part in the stage 3 open debate on the procurement reform Scotland bill. I would indicate that the Labour Party are supporting the bill at stage 3 when the division comes round at quarter past six. I agree with Nicola Sturgeon in the sense that the £10 billion of public sector spend that is available to influence through the bill is an opportunity, not only for good procurement practice, but in order to implement more fairness in our communities throughout Scotland. However, I think that the bill, although we are supporting it, is an opportunity. Labour interacted seriously with the bill throughout. We submitted a suite of amendments at stage 2, all of which, with the exception of one, were rejected by the Government. Although we have seen some progress this afternoon in terms of a number of amendments from Jackie Baillie and one from Ken Macintosh, I think that if you examined the bill that was initially published and looked at the final version that we are going to vote on shortly, there is very little difference in it. For such an important bill, an important piece of legislation, it makes you wonder as to how good the parliamentary process has been during the course of consideration of these stages. In terms of the living wage, I am not going to rerun the arguments that we have had. I am sure that people will be delighted to know. What I would say is that I am obviously disappointed that the Labour amendment has not been included. I genuinely believe that it was a real opportunity to extend the living wage. In terms of the SNP amendment, I think that that is a result of the pressure from CAMP, such as the STUC, SCVO and others. That has moved the SNP to include provision for the living wage in the bill. As I said earlier, I am not convinced that that is strong enough and I remain convinced as to how much difference that will make. In terms of moving the living wage forward, what we are really interested in is monitoring the impact of the bill and the changes that Nicola Sturgeon announced earlier. It might be useful if there was a living wage unit in order to do that, because we want to see whether the effect of those changes results in more people being paid at the living wage. I think that there also remains a big issue, as I have consistently raised in recent weeks, in relation to people working on Scottish Government contracts and prisons. We had the example a couple of weeks ago of the National Museum of Scotland shop, who are not paid the living wage. If the amendments that Nicola Sturgeon has brought forward to match her rhetoric with implementation, we have to see some movement for those workers. What is also needed moving forward is a national living wage strategy. One of the interesting things in recent weeks is that we have seen more businesses come out for the living wage KPMG nationwide. There is an opportunity to extend the payment of it, not just in the public sector but in the private sector throughout Scotland. On some of the other issues, I regret that the provisions of the bill and community benefit will not strengthen to cover more contracts in terms of the threshold being reduced. I also would have preferred to have seen that the amendment was not selected for inclusion, but I would also have liked to have seen inclusion of community benefit in relation to apprentices. That could have been a real opportunity. In terms of aggressive tax avoidance, we could have been stronger on that. If people are adopting practices of aggressive tax avoidance and they are then taking money from the public purse, that is something that we should have more control over. I welcome the movement that there was on trade union recognition in relation to Ken Mackintosh's amendment and Jackie Baillie's amendment on annual reporting. I think that annual reporting and monitoring is important going forward on this bill because we can then see the effect of the £10 billion and the effect of some of the changes that have been put forward. However, that was not matched by support for changes on blacklist in zero hours contracts and supported businesses. Jackie Baillie's point about an equal pay audit was a very important one, particularly when you see that, if you look at the living wage, 64 per cent of the people who are not on the living wage are women, that is £256,000. That shows, as Jackie Baillie said in her contribution, that there is still a long way to go. Another issue that I agree with Nicola Sturgeon on is that it is not just about this bill, it is about the processes around procurement. One of the issues that businesses bring to all MSPs is that there is frustration around the process. They feel that it is too complicated and it needs to be simplified. It is not just a case of legislation, it needs to be a simplification of the process. In summary, Deputy Presiding Officer, we are always supporting the bill at stage 3. We have attempted seriously to bring forward robust amendments that I think would have made the bill stronger and would have made the procurement process stronger. I will be very interested in going forward to see how the bill plays out and what impact it has on that £10 billion of spend. I look forward to examining that in Parliament and throughout the country. Many thanks, and I call Alex Johnston. Maximum five minutes, lest we be better. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I rise to support this bill. I think that we have come to a position where we have something that we can all agree on. Of course, if I had been doing this myself, if I had never had the chance to be the Cabinet Secretary, I might have done something very different. However, my additional chapter on compulsory competitive tendering remains in the death drawer where it may stay for some time. However, the priorities in getting this bill through Parliament and on to the statute book was to make sure that we had a procurement system that was simple to understand, easy to access, maximise the opportunities and minimise the burdens on those companies who bid for contracts. Always in my mind, although we have been talking about big companies in many cases, I have had small businesses. My concern has always been that small businesses often miss the opportunity to participate in Government contracts. If we can deliver that, we will have done something very worthwhile. It is the case also that during the process we have seen the Government introduce some changes that will strengthen the position of the third sector and will do something for supported businesses. Those are two groups that, in initial evidence to the committee, felt that they had been disadvantaged by processes in the past, and I hope that they feel that their position has been strengthened to some extent. There is a significant case that we said that the bill will require fine-tuning through regulation. Indeed, the minister has made it clear that the nature of the bill will allow that to happen as the process goes on. As we have gone through both at stage 2 and at stage 3, the Labour Party has tried particularly hard to introduce a series of other issues that, in my view, would have taken the bill beyond the issue of procurement. I wish to almost take this opportunity to apologise for the fact that I voted against all their proposals. The reason for that is that I want this bill to be about procurement, and I want it to be simple and easy to understand. While I do not agree with all the principles that the Labour Party has brought forward, it is essential that, for the good of Scotland, as we go forward, that those issues are all addressed. I hope that the Labour Party will find opportunities to bring them to the chamber and force them on to the political agenda so that we can discuss them in that environment. I do not believe that the procurement bill was the place to have that argument. For that reason, I think that we have a piece of legislation that is fit for purpose. We will find supporters and detractors among those who are likely to take advantage of it. We will, at the end of the day, deliver a framework upon which we can build over time. I hope genuinely that it will deliver efficient use of public money and fair distribution of contracts across Scotland's many businesses, supported businesses and third sector organisations. If we can look back and believe that we have achieved that, I think that we will have a great deal to be proud of. Many thanks. We now turn to the open debate and we are very tight for time. Maximum three and a half minutes. Jim Eadie to be followed by Drew Henry. Presiding Officer, I am pleased to have the opportunity to take part in this stage 3 debate. I would like to begin by paying tribute to all of those individuals and stakeholders who have contributed to the process of scrutinising and strengthening the provisions of the bill. I believe that the bill at stage 3 is a better bill than the one that was first published on the issue of fair trade and ethical practice. I argued at stage 2 with the support of the Scottish Fair Trade Forum for measures to strengthen the bill. I was therefore pleased that the Government responded by tabling an amendment to include a statement of a public authorities general policy on fairly and ethically traded goods and services as part of its procurement strategy. In the words of the Scottish Fair Trade Forum, this will help to build on the significant progress that Scotland has already made as a fair trade nation. The bill as amended at stage 2 will for the first time compel public authorities to state their policy towards ethical and fair trade. I very much welcome that, and I am pleased to have had the opportunity to work alongside the Scottish Fair Trade Forum to make that possible. I was also pleased that the amendment tabled by me this afternoon, which seeks to promote compliance by contractors and subcontractors with the provisions of health and safety legislation, has now been incorporated into the bill. I put on record again my thanks to the Scottish Hazards Campaign Group and Families Against Corporate Killers for highlighting the issue. On blacklisting, the Government has made it clear throughout the passage of the bill that it is totally opposed to the unacceptable practice of blacklisting. The Government has worked closely with the trade unions to develop comprehensive guidance that will require companies seeking public sector contracts to disclose whether they have been involved in blacklisting. That guidance includes a new standard pre-qualification questionnaire requiring suppliers to disclose if they have breached laws to outlaw blacklisting. No one should doubt the Deputy First Minister's commitment on this issue. As by me at the committee on 11 December, if the Government had gone as far as it is possible to go, she stated that anything that we can do to banish blacklisting will be done. I am pleased that the Government has followed through on this commitment this afternoon in outlining how this can be done most effectively. The Government's approach was also welcomed by families against corporate killers, who stated that we have also been heartened by the recent announcement on the exclusion from public sector contracts of companies that engage in blacklisting, particularly because so many of those blacklisted have been so because of their health and safety activities. There has been much discussion this afternoon on the living wage. James Kelly said that the bill had not changed substantially since stage 1 and then proceeded to say that the amendment on a living wage was as a result of pressure from the STUC and others. The Government's amendment, which was passed today, places an explicit reference to the living wage on the face of the bill. Whatever differences we have, we should welcome that. The Scottish Government is doing all that it can with the powers that it currently has to address the issue of low pay and the amendments passed this afternoon will mean that businesses that want to work on public sector contracts will have to clearly demonstrate how they plan to remunerate their staff. The test that must be applied to the bill is whether or not it will make a difference. Will it improve the pay and working conditions of people employed across Scotland? Does it drive economic activity across the supply chain? Can it strengthen the position of small businesses and the third sector? Does it promote fairness in employment and fair trade practices? I believe that, on all those crucial tests, the bill has succeeded and, for those reasons, it deserves to pass at stage 3 tonight. Thank you, Henry. We followed by Linda Fabiani. We should not underestimate the sheer scale of what the public sector can do by using its purchasing power. The public sector affects every aspect of life in Scotland. Because of the significance of the public sector, it has the opportunity to make a difference. One of the problems over the years is that we have underestimated how we can use procurement as a force for positive change. Alex Johnson said that he did not support much of what the Labour Party had been attempting to do because he did not see the significance or relevance of that to procurement. However, if Jim Eadie is right in saying that we can use procurement to affect changes in relation to health and safety, we can use procurement to affect changes in a whole raft of things across the public sector. The cabinet secretary, Jim Eadie, has made reference to the fact that we have moved forward in relation to what the Government has put in the face of the bill with respect to the living wage. I think that there are a number of positive changes that have been made. I think that there is a genuine acceptance that procurement can make a difference and that we should be using our powers in this Parliament to improve things. Nor should we underestimate what we can do. It is disappointing that we have just pulled back from using those powers to the full. It is all very well to say that there will be a reference to the living wage on the bill, but we could have gone much further on whether guidance does anything remains to be seen. I hope that it does. However, we could have gone much further in specifying a legal requirement on the bill that forces the Scottish Government to say to its contractors and subcontractors that one of the conditions for you getting this contract is that you will pay the living wage. That may well have a financial consequence, but that would be a matter for the Scottish Government to ensure that that price is paid in the contract to ensure that it happens. There is a good example of that happening already, the example of Renfrewshire Council. Renfrewshire Council, in response to the unison care campaign, has specified that the contractors for care must pay the living wage. There is a cost to the council for that. At no point during the bill have I used a financial argument against having a mandatory requirement for the living wage. It has entirely been a legal point. I agree with him that we should use the procurement bill to the maximum to promote the living wage, so it has never been a financial argument that he has heard from me. The fact is that using that financial clout could have been underpinned legally as Renfrewshire Council is doing to make sure that not just the Scottish Government, but every public sector provider does the same. You could do it because it is being done, and it is a shame that councils such as Renfrewshire are being left on their own to do it. We should have the full force of the public sector lined up in support of that initiative. Let us support the bill, positive changes, but we could have done much more. We are short of time in how much we can all say, but in one thing I would say in response to Hugh Henry is that I have not seen an awful lot of councils, Labour, or otherwise running forward to push for this. In fact, when you do the investigation quite often, some of the procurement they carry out—no, I do not have time—leaves a lot to be desired. I am not convinced having looked at all the work that has been done through this that we could, in fact, put that in the face of the bill, and I am really pleased with what the cabinet secretary has brought forward. She is absolutely right. Public procurement already has a complex and demanding set of rules. I think that there is a balance that has been achieved in the procurement bill, and it has been a long time coming since the cabinet secretary's own government came in in 2007 and started to revise procurement, started to make it better, started to streamline it, trying to cut down on the bureaucracy. What I think is absolutely wonderful is to have that two-pronged approach, which is business-friendly but socially responsible. That is extremely, extremely important. Legislation is only one part of the reform agenda, and I am glad to hear that we can look forward to more coming forward to try to achieve those aims. One of the things that I believe is both business-friendly and socially responsible is to put an emphasis on small and medium-sized enterprises when we are looking at public procurement in a country like Scotland, where we have defined localities, defined areas, where we have local authorities doing a lot of public procurement. I think that well-being and the support that comes for small and medium enterprises and well-being of communities can be combined. I know that it is difficult because we operate under procurement rules of Europe. It is very, very hard, but there are innovative ways of managing that kind of thing. After all, in Scotland, small and medium enterprises account for over 99 per cent of enterprises, over 53 per cent of employment and 36.5 per cent of turnover. It is very, very important. I know that there has been a lot of discussion going on about the possibility of breaking contracts into smaller lots to be able to take the best advantage of small and medium enterprises. The directives will have to be looked at very carefully to allow that kind of thing to happen. However, I think that that is where we are right in having a fairly straightforward bill, procurement bill in legislation, that then allows you to look carefully at future directors and to transpose them for the best possible advantage. In East Kilbride, where I represent, this is extremely important, there is a task force set up by South Lanarkshire Council. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to go along to their meetings because they seem to have some problem about whether I can keep things commercially confidential. I hope that they take that on board. I hope that South Lanarkshire Council, in looking at East Kilbride, will look at the importance of small and medium enterprises, and I think that that is something that could be done in communities across Scotland for the wellbeing of that community and their economic success. Thank you very much. I intend to call the remaining two members, Tavish Scott, to be followed by Jackie Baillie. Three minutes each, please. I am with Jamedie. I am going to apply the does the bill make a difference test. I think that he is quite right about that. For this reason, some years ago, a very bright and impressive school cook on the island that I live on where my children went to school, tried to introduce local lamb on to the school menu. She went through hoops and hoops and hoops to overcome local government procurement. To this day in Shetland—I am going to use the bill to encourage Shetland to do a heck of a lot better on this—the sourcing of local beef and lamb and fish for local schools and other care centres and other public sector provision is not done at that local level. I hope that, using the community benefit regime that the Government has introduced and all parties are very much supported through the passage of this bill here today, that measures that are in this bill will assist our local councils and other public sector providers to ensure that provision can help the local economy in that kind of way—in that case, local agriculture—in that kind of way, which would be beneficial, I would have thought, for so many reasons, not least of which, on the food miles arguments of many of these other ones that we make in a different context. I do hope that this bill is a considerable step forward. I would like to thank the Deputy First Minister for taking it forward in the spirit in which she has done. I particularly look forward to Jackie Baillie's annual report now being used. She will forgive me if I hope that hub calls come under a degree of more scrutiny than they have in the past. If that is a mechanism that the Government has supported today, then I applaud that. I think that is a good step forward. The two other aspects that I did want to highlight were, firstly, the access that Linda Fabiani has rightly been pointed to for contracts for our small business sector. I do not think that any Government has gone far enough in this area yet. Those big framework documents, those big structures that are in place in terms of procurement across Scotland, I think are tricky to put it mildly for smaller businesses across Scotland of all kinds—construction, white-collar, blue-collar, professional bodies, professional businesses, for example, providing architectural services. I am sure that the Deputy First Minister has been on the end of numerous representations on this, and I do hope that her Government is able to make a big step forward using the measures that we are going to pass today. The final point is just to observe that when we do pass legislation like this, and when much of it, as the Deputy First Minister illustrated in her opening remarks, will depend on the secondary legislation that is subsequently considered by Parliament. There is a job for all of us to do on that, because I suspect that that is where we genuinely can make a difference to the kind of issues that many members have raised this afternoon. Many thanks, and finally, Jackie Baillie, three minutes please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I dispense with the normal thanks that are customary in the interests of time, but thank you. You know who you are. At the heart of this bill, it is very much about improving procurement in the public sector and getting the maximum advantage from expenditure of some £10 billion each year. For me and for others in the chamber, it is much more than that. It is about how we use that substantial amount of money and the influence of the public sector to drive change—change in the standard and quality of services, change in the rights of those who are employed to deliver that service. How staff are valued and treated matters. The living wage, equal pay audits, public sector equality duties all should be on the face of the bill, not just in guidance. The one thing that I learned from my time as a minister is that what you put on the face of the bill is what matters to you and your Government. That is a political choice, and I am disappointed that the cabinet secretary does not believe that those areas are of sufficient importance to include on the face of the bill. Let me touch on equality in the equal pay gap, because the Deputy First Minister, in rejecting equal pay audits, could not help herself. She departed to the usual attack on Westminster. Let me ask the chamber how many times is equal pay, gender pay gaps or the pay gap itself mentioned in the body of the white paper? Is it once? Is it twice? Is it even three times? Let me tell the chamber that it is not mentioned at all. You need to go to annex D on page 607 to get a mention of wage equality. That tells you all that you need to know about the SNP's priorities. Women, included as an annex, are simply an afterthought. Let me turn to the living wage, because the cabinet secretary has portfolio responsibility for tackling child poverty. She would agree that report after report is unanimous about the scale of the problem and what we need to do to begin to tackle it. The majority of those reports say that there is much that the Scottish Government can do now, including implementing the living wage. You only need to look at the sharp increase in in-work poverty and the increase in queues at food banks to know the importance of making work pay. As James Kelly has already said, that has a greater impact on women who are 64 per cent of the 400,000 workers that would benefit. The cabinet secretary knows that women are more generally employed in low-paid jobs. Many work part-time. That bill could have made a huge difference to them. It could have been so much bolder on the living wage, on equal pay, on the public sector equality duty and on improving women's lives. That is not a bad bill, and I welcome her agreement to a number of amendments from across the chamber, but I think that it is a missed opportunity. In advance of the referendum, the SNP has discovered women, and I welcome that new-found interest. I am always delighted to see more women in the cabinet, but it is no substitute for taking practical action to improve hundreds and thousands of women's lives right now. Many thanks, and I now call Gavin Brown in the closing speeches. Four minutes maximum, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I want to make two points in closing for the Scottish Conservatives today. The first one is that we broadly support the approach taken by the Government towards the bill as a whole and also to the amendments both at stage 2 and stage 3 today. Because, while there were a number of powerful arguments put forward by the Labour Party, by the Green Party and indeed by the Liberal Democrats about amendments that they wanted to see, had we passed all of those amendments, I think that there would have been a negative consequence to business across Scotland. Had we put additional requirements for the living wage and sustainability and animal welfare and reducing inequality and climate change and the third sector and wage ratios, equalities, zero-hours, equal pay, tax avoidance and blacklisting, all in one go, I think that there would have been a significant risk that many businesses would have increased their costs. The £10 billion of procurement that has been mentioned by all parties would not have gone nearly as far as we all wanted to go. In particular, I think that we would have seen even fewer small and micro businesses engaging with the public sector and even attempting to win public sector contracts. I think that there is broad agreement across the chamber that there are not enough SMEs doing business with the public sector. I think that there is broad agreement that everybody wants to see them getting a larger slice of the pie and doing more business. However, had we implemented all that everyone wanted to happen today, the process would not have been simplified and it would have been made more complex. In the absence of a formal impact assessment, we may well have lived to regret making all those decisions. The second point that I want to focus on—this is a plea to the cabinet secretary, because she is right when she said that this is not the end of the process, in some ways it is the beginning. One particular issue that I hope can be taken forward by the Government when it comes to guidance and regulation is not an area that Linda Fabiani touched on in her speech. That is the size of contracts, because the most common complaint from small businesses is that they are precluded not officially, not legally from getting involved, but they are precluded because the size of the contract is simply too large for the business that they currently have. It is an issue for businesses in almost every constituency in Scotland, and the key question to answer is how can we unbundle more of those contracts so that small businesses have a fighting chance? They do not want special treatment, they just want the ability to compete against the bigger players and the opportunity to win more business ultimately. FSP Scotland and its briefing for the stage 3 debate put it well that it thinks that the statutory guidance on procurement strategies and annual reports will be vital to ensure that we get smaller lots and better small business access. Section 9 of the bill, as will hopefully be passed, does talk about facilitating the involvement of small and medium enterprises, but my plea to the Scottish Government is to go a step further. In section 9A, guidance can be published on that specific point, and I ask FSP Scotland to think carefully about that in the coming months so that we can get formal guidance that does unbundle the size of contracts and give smaller businesses the opportunity to compete. Thank you, Presiding Officer. As has already been said, we will be supporting the procurement from the bill at decision time tonight, because we feel that the public sector procurement can achieve much more than the positive effect of that individual contract. It has been said already repeatedly that we spend £10 billion a year on procuring goods and services in Scotland, and we need to see the full economic, environmental and social benefits that vast sum of money can bring. The procurement reform bill can and should have been used to ensure payment of the living wage in public contracts, maximise community benefit from procurement, demonstrate the Scottish Government's commitment to meeting their climate change targets, condemn the use of exploitative zero-hours contracts, tax avoidance and blacklisting, promote equality and support contractors committed to achieving equality, encourage sustainable food procurement, support skills development with apprenticeships, support the third sector, and support people with disabilities into employment. Those are the areas where we have sought to strengthen our legislation, and we feel that the procurement reform bill could have been a much more ambitious piece of work if the amendments that are tabled by Labour members had been taken on board completely. We do, however, welcome the Scottish Government's support on Jackie Baillie's amendments on equality and Kevin Macintosh's amendment on protecting trade union recognition and Sarah Boyack's on food procurement. We also note that the Government's amendments passed this afternoon on the living wage following the campaign. We have had alongside trade unions and the poverty alliance and the Government's amendment on supported workplaces. While those amendments are an improvement, we still feel that the Government could have gone further by accepting its own amendments. The Scottish Government, particularly on living wage, only requires contractors to include a general policy statement on the living wage and the air procurement strategy. Our amendment would have required the payment of the living wage to workers. The Scottish Government recognises that its amendment does not require the payment of the living wage to workers, so I would ask what practical effect that will have. In all the debates that there have been in this Parliament on the living wage and procurement, the case of refit versus needers action has been mentioned. There has been no practical way put forward by the Labour Party how we get over that. Can Mr Griffin explain how we deal with the case law that exists and the current rules that there is in Europe? There was evidence submitted by Thomson solicitors to his own committee. I am sure that the member would wish to be as ambitious as he was on alcohol minimum Europe pricing as he could be with the living wage. We would have seen a much stronger bill for that and the take-home pay packets of thousands of people who are on public contracts boosted as a result of that. Another area in which I think that the bill could have been strengthened was around zero hours. I would ask the question of the cabinet secretary why the Government could not commit to introducing contract performance clauses that stipulated that successful bidders must not use zero hours contracts, since contractors already have to demonstrate through KPIs how they are meeting the requirements of contract performance clauses. Could the Scottish Government not have used those KPIs to monitor zero hours contracts? That would be helpful if the cabinet secretary would be able to clarify that. The procurement strategies and annual reports are another area in which we have welcomed that development. They cover community benefit requirements that they should deliver value for money, timescales for payments, summary of procurement activity in the next two years. That is a lot of good information that should drive up best practice and help companies bidding for work. What is still missing, though, from those procurement strategies, is that reference to supported business, which I pushed in my amendment. We spoke about the Government's own policy that every public authority should have at least one contract with a supported business. It seems strange that we have a procurement reform bill that does not set that commitment in legislation. We debated that issue earlier, but I think that when 44 public authorities do not award a single contract to supported businesses, we really should have a stronger commitment. The Scottish Government has worked to ensure that staff members who are directly employed get the living wage. Local authorities have taken a lead, too. Although we have seen some moves in the private sector recently, the private sector has not kept pace with the public sector on the living wage as much as we would have liked in terms of what the Scottish Government has done and what local authorities have done in areas such as Renfrewshire. That bill gave us the opportunity to force private companies bidding for contracts to paste after the living wage and see that transformational knock-on effect that it would have had in the private sector. For that reason alone, we will look back and say that that was a £10 billion opportunity. The Deputy First Minister has eight minutes until 6.15. I thank everybody who has contributed not just to the process of the bill, but to the debate this afternoon. There are a few themes that I will pick up on that have been raised during the course of the debate. The process of the bill has gone through. I agree entirely with Jim Eadie. I think that the bill has improved as it has gone through its parliamentary progress. James Kelly managed to say both that the bill had barely changed during its progress due to Scottish Government resistance to change, but he also said that the Scottish Government had been forced into making changes on the living wage due to pressure. The reality is that we have made changes where the case for change has been made, both in principle, in practice and in legal terms. We have made very important changes on the living wage. The bill is stronger now in respect of the living wage. We have made changes on tax avoidance, on reporting requirements, on trade union recognition, on health and safety, just to name a few of the areas where the bill has been strengthened. I think that that is a credit not just to the Government but to everybody who has been involved in the scrutiny of this piece of legislation. The second theme relates to the importance of the bill. It is a point that I made in my opening remarks, but it bears repetition, and many members speaking in this debate have made it this point. We spend £10 billion through the public sector every year. It is vital that we ensure that that spend delivers economic and social benefits, and that is what we have sought to do through this bill. It is what we will continue to seek to do through the regulations and guidance that will flow from it. I know and I accept the reality that Labour needs to manufacture divisions with the SNP. In fact, opposing the SNP now seems to be Labour's only real purpose in life. Nevertheless, notwithstanding that, it is interesting that many of the so-called divisions during this bill have been about how we achieve change, not if we achieve that change. We might not always have agreed—we might not always have felt able to agree—because of legal constraints with Labour on how to advance certain priorities. Nevertheless, we have sought at every turn to find the best way possible of achieving the same objectives. The living wage is a case in point here. Unlike Alex Johnson, and with the greatest respect to him, I have no objection to using the procurement reform bill to advance the objective of the living wage. On the contrary, I would have liked to have supported Labour's amendments. If I had felt that those amendments were legally competent, I would have put them in the bill at its introduction. I could not because of the legal restrictions that I have already outlined and I will not rehearse today. I would simply say to Hugh Henry that the whole purpose of the guidance is to further support councils like Renfrewshire to do what they are doing. The restriction is not in encouraging and supporting councils, it is about making it a mandatory requirement through this legislation. Again, the objective is shared and how we do it is the point of division. I hope that we can all now unite about doing it in the way that this bill enables. On occasion, it has been a bit amusing to hear Labour members and Mark Griffin use this argument in his summing up about the minimum wage—sorry, about minimum pricing, not about the minimum wage. The issues are different in my view, but I recall the debates on minimum pricing for alcohol, where Labour opposed that legislation with the honourable exception of Malcolm Chisholm, tooth and nail, for the specific reason that they thought that it breached European law. It would risk challenge on European legal grounds. They demanded to see our legal advice and said that, in all conscience, we could not pass this legislation because it was a risk that it would breach European law. It is just a bit rich now to hear them make the arguments that they are making in relation to this. I hope now that all members will work with us in developing the guidance. The STEC Unison, the poverty alliance, whom I had a very productive meeting with last week, have agreed to do so. Tavish Scott made a very good point. There is a big job for Parliament now to do in scrutinising the secondary legislation. The other theme that I just want to touch on is this theme of striking a balance. There are tensions that run through this agenda, and I have always been clear about that. There are competing interests. The public authorities want value for money. They have to think about affordability. Bidders want simplicity and ease of access to contracts. Tax payers want rightly value for money in its widest sense. Those different interests do not always align easily. We have done our best in this bill, and we will continue to do our best to strike the right balance between them. I want specifically, because Gavin Brown raised some of those points to say a word about SMEs. I absolutely endorse the desire to see SMEs get a bigger slice of the public procurement cake. I would, though, share just some figures. SMEs make up 37 per cent of our economy. They currently get 46 per cent of the £10 billion in public contracts. I would like that to be more. Section 9 says that public authorities, when undertaking a regulated procurement, have to look at how they facilitate SME involvement. Gavin Brown is right that the guidance will be important, and I certainly give him an undertaking that will give serious consideration to that. In conclusion, I think that we have done a difficult job well. I think that we have provided a framework for public procurement that allows us now to develop the guidance and the regulations that will give effect to the economic and social objectives that many people rightly want to see public procurement deliver. I have said repeatedly, and I will repeat again in the last few seconds of the time available to me, that we are determined to ensure that the £10 billion of public sector spend on contracts is spent in a way that delivers economic growth, that delivers advantages and benefits for our businesses, that delivers social benefits, that ensures that disreputable companies do not get their hands on public money, that we stamp down on tax avoiding, on blacklisting, on the inappropriate use of zero-hour contracts, that we do everything we can to promote and further the living wage. I think that those are the objectives that all of us can sign up to. Now that we have the bill and the statute book, we can get on with the job of making sure that it delivers on those objectives. Again, I will simply end by thanking all members who have contributed to this process, and encourage them to continue to do so. In closing, I ask the Parliament to pass in a few seconds time the procurement reform Scotland bill in order to make big improvements in this agenda. Thank you, Deputy First Minister. Members will wish to note that the members' debate immediately after a decision time is in the name of Bill Kidd's, and it is on recovering health costs for as best as related conditions and diseases. That debate will start immediately at 6.15 after decision time, and we have only one decision for tonight as a result of today's business, and that is on the procurement reform Scotland bill, and we now come to decision time. There is one question to be put as a result of today's business. The question is that motion number 1005, in the name of Nicola Sturgeon, on the procurement reform Scotland bill, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to, and the procurement reform Scotland bill is now passed. It is decision time. We now move to members' business.


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