I'm conscious that this is the last opportunity that I'll have to speak, and I would just like to put on record my thanks to the group office, the clerking team and my staff for all the help they've given me, not only through Stage 3 amendments, but the whole Bill process. They've been invaluable.

I'm conscious that we've not seen eye to eye on this Bill; I nonetheless want to pay tribute to the Deputy Minister and to thank her for at least making this a rather enjoyable experience for me. 

So, I'd like to speak to my amendment 44, which will help ensure that procuring locally does not come at the expense of globally responsible procurement. This Bill sets out to encourage public bodies to procure goods and services as locally as possible in order to allow public procurement funds to be used to help local economies and local communities. However, encouraging this may have the unintended consequence of public bodies reducing the amount of fair-trade goods that they have purchased from the global south, and thus will no longer support these global communities that are trying to become self-sustainable. This amendment seeks to ensure that public bodies recognise and reduce the impact that they will have when purchasing locally instead of purchasing fair-trade products. Thank you.