British Steel

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord up to a point. I am sure he would be the first to accept that, in the modern world that we live in, it is frequently wise to buy certain things from abroad because other people can produce them better or more cheaply. Obviously, one always has to take into account the strategic considerations that the noble Lord raises. But there is no point trying to produce absolutely everything oneself, probably at greater cost and less effectively.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, would my noble friend the Minister care to comment on the impact of the private equity capital structure games that are often played, with deep discount bonds being bought up and the ultimate owners ending up with a profit even when a company of such strategic importance ultimately fails? Can he assure us that the Government will look into the ways in which capital structure is used, particularly because the steelworkers had been doing such a marvellous job of turning around an industry that had failed in the past and was now operating extremely well? Indeed, we have other sectors in this country which are at risk, more directly perhaps, from a no-deal Brexit, and may have similar ownership structures, which we need to look into urgently.

[Lord Henley]

My noble friend makes an interesting point. My right honourable friend would be the first to say that we want to learn any lessons possible from what has happened here with Greybull’s purchase of this company, which was then renamed British Steel, some three years ago. It is a good company and I am glad that my noble friend pays tribute to its employees. It has made improvements. As I understand it, the company was returning to profitability. My noble friend goes on to talk about wider lessons to be learned about the structure of companies such as Greybull. All I can say is that we will learn what lessons we can.

British Steel

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, the most important thing is to get my right honourable friend the Prime Minister’s deal through, and for the noble Lord and others to sign up to it, to get the certainty that we need. This relates not just to the steel industry but to all parts of the economy, and we will continue to work for that.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend relay from these Benches the deep concern that if we proceed on a no-deal Brexit basis, this may be just the beginning of the demise of a significantly successful manufacturing industry in this country? The money that has been spent on planning for no deal could be considered in the context of the bridging loan that is required to save these precious jobs in Scunthorpe.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I do not think I can take my noble friend further than I have already done when commenting on Brexit and the desirability of getting my right honourable friend’s deal through.

Competition and Markets Authority: Legislative and Institutional Reforms

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for securing this important debate on an issue in which I have always taken great interest. The UK has one of the strongest consumer rights frameworks in the world but, as consumer group Which?, with its extensive experience of campaigning on behalf of consumers for many years, has highlighted, inadequate enforcement systems are too often preventing those rights from being enjoyed. The asymmetry of information between customers and businesses is well documented, especially in areas that I am most familiar with: financial products and services. I refer noble Lords to my registered interests.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that there are many instances of important one-off purchases, and the power of consumers is too often worryingly weak. At a time when trust in institutions, big business and the political establishment seems to have fallen dramatically and public dissatisfaction is rising, it seems more important than ever that the Government and the business community ensure that consumers have confidence that their rights will be enforced in practice, and that they will be effectively recompensed if things go wrong. The rise in populism, with people feeling that the system is stacked against them, can be aggravated by failures in consumer protection, or by claims that they are being protected that turn out not to be effective in practice. I applaud the Government for their Modernising Consumer Markets Green Paper, and welcome the recognition that this issue requires reform. I also welcome the work of the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, for the Competition and Markets Authority, proposing important reforms to legislation and consumer protection.

I hope the Minister can give us further information on the Government’s intentions to act quickly; to improve the powers of the CMA to both gather and demand information; to require companies to co-operate with their investigations; and to enforce consumer protections and levy adequate deterrent fines, as so rightly pointed out in the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie. Can the Minister assure the House that the department agrees with the CMA proposals that the consumer interest is vital and needs to be at the heart of its work?

Unfortunately, the current system relies on local authorities’ trading standards services, which, according to Which?, account for 75% of public enforcement responsibilities, whether that be for scams, product safety or food labelling. Given the budget constraints of councils, which are already struggling with social care costs, local authorities are often inadequately equipped to cope with such responsibilities. Could the Minister explain to us how the work that the newly established Office for Product Safety and Standards within his department, which is most welcome, will support local authorities?

Indeed, it would be excellent to build on this initiative by having a consumer-focused body concerned with product standards to ensure that they are fit for purpose and not harmful to the public. I absolutely believe that a strong public enforcement regime that protects consumers and provides adequate deterrence to poor practice is needed, along with proper alternative dispute resolution services that consumers can turn to if they need to pursue claims against a business. This could have a central portal, which would really help the public to easily find a place to make their complaint. Currently they are too often passed from pillar to post, and it is just too confusing. If they have a full-time job, for example, they usually do not have the time to do this and will just give up, feeling that the system is against them.

Of course most businesses operate fairly and strive to provide good-value products or services, not least to attract future business. But I have seen first-hand how confusing it can be for consumers to find out the appropriate place to complain to when they have suffered detriment. Most business does not require recompense; it operates well. However, the ombudsman system can be bewilderingly confusing, with different bodies covering different types of complaint. It is important to make it easier for consumers to feel that they are being listened to when things go wrong, which is, as I stress, in the minority of cases, and to see that the Government are taking their treatment seriously.

The Conservatives have always been the party of business, and business is vital for successful economies. I agree with my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe that competition is a vital element of successful capitalist economies and of driving better consumer outcomes. But we must also care about how business treats its customers and ensure that it is fair. It is important that consumers’ economic interests and protection from detriment are taken seriously and that earlier, more robust intervention is introduced when it is needed to reassure the public that they will have proper rights of redress.

The letter from the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, outlines that the CMA’s current statutory duty is,

“to promote competition, both within and outside the UK, for the benefit of consumers”,

which is subtly different from putting consumer interests at the heart of what it does. Currently, it can take more than three years for the CMA to issue binding remedies. It does not have sufficient power to fine firms for failure to comply with its findings. It would also be a good step forward, as the letter says, if the CMA could liaise more directly with business and obtain commitments for improved practice without lengthy investigations on a more formal basis. I believe that most businesses would want to comply.

The CMA has weak enforcement powers. Therefore, it can offer only weak deterrents. It has to take a business to court if it thinks practices are illegal and even if it wins it cannot issue fines. Of course there is always a difficult balancing act between the rights of business to make good profits and the rights of consumers to be treated fairly, with adequate recompense when their rights are violated. The CMA is right to suggest that it should be able to ban directors for breaches of consumer law, for example, not just of competition law. I agree that it is really important to ensure that whistleblowers are compensated and protected properly whenever possible, with anonymity. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will reassure the House how seriously the Government take this issue and offer their response to the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie.

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on securing this important debate and on his excellent and passionate remarks of introduction. Let me say first that we have much to be proud of. We are showing global leadership in combating climate change. For example, a recent PwC study reports that the UK is reducing emissions faster than any other G20 country, while still growing our economy. Moreover, 2018 was the cleanest and greenest year ever for electricity generation as renewables generated more than 37% of UK electricity, up from 6% in 2010. Greenhouse gas emissions have reduced by a quarter since 2010. The Government deserve praise for their actions to decarbonise the power sector, with emissions down by 64% on 1990 levels. These are excellent achievements but there is absolutely no room for complacency. There is so much more to be done, as my noble friend Lord Deben outlined so eloquently and as the report from the Committee on Climate Change today explains.

I will focus most of the rest of my remarks on the big challenge now, which is transport. Those emissions have actually been rising, partly as we are driving more but also because carmakers have not reduced emissions as quickly as they promised. Transport is now the sector with the highest level of emissions. I hope my noble friend the Minister will agree that this must change and that there is a huge opportunity for the UK to lead the world in the transition to electric vehicles. I declare an interest as a very happy driver of an all-electric car and I urge the Government to do more to promote this form of road transport and to get our market moving, as we are falling behind Europe’s leaders. Providing £1.5 billion for supporting low-emission vehicles through their Road to Zero strategy is a start. We are also investing £3.5 billion to reduce emissions from road transport but we need zero emissions, not just low emissions.

So far this year, fully electric vehicles have made up under 1% of new car sales. In Germany the figure is 1.7%, in the Netherlands it is 5% and in Norway, incredibly, 50%. This shows what can be done; there are significant benefits to the planet and to air quality for our citizens if we do so. The UK has more than 17,000 public charging points for electric vehicles, of which around 1,700 are rapid devices. This is an achievement, of course, but far more is needed. Without a better regionally spread network of charging points, we will not reach the leadership position and targets that we could achieve.

We need investment in infrastructure. I hope that the Government could encourage more of our long-term investment funds, including local authority-funded pension schemes and other investors, to look for the stable long-term returns that can come from investing even more in climate change mitigation measures and improvements to our infrastructure. These long-term pension funds have huge resources available; I refer my noble friend the Minister and your Lordships to my registered interests in this area. I believe those resources could be far better utilised in securing often inflation-linked returns, which can help meet their liabilities, by investing in not just the income-producing elements but the early-stage infrastructure. That can deliver better ways of managing the risks and returns of these funds than chasing, for example, government bonds.

Early-stage infrastructure and environmentally friendly investments can deliver equity-like returns to investors willing to seek alternative sources of risk premium, other than pure equity or hedge funds, and alternative sources of stable returns—often inflation-linked—outside both the gilt market and the conventional and supposedly low-risk bond markets. These have potentially been heavily distorted by central bank policies and we do not yet understand what that has done to investment risk for long-term investors. Climate and environmentallyfriendly investments should be a core part of any risk-return management assessment for long-term investors.

In reducing transport sector emissions, I suggest to my noble friend the Minister that having vehicle fleets for company cars is an extremely effective mechanism. The company car market is often overlooked and we could encourage more zero-emission company cars. The Government certainly deserve praise for showing leadership last year by committing to end petrol and diesel sales by 2040. However, it is vital that the Government confirm urgently that future rates of company car tax, beyond April 2021, can bring in the 2% rate for zero-emission vehicles for multiple years beyond that. I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could take that back to his department.

I fully agree with my noble friend Lord Deben that this should not be a party-political issue. Encouraging institutional investors to take on more responsibility for investing in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and helping to mitigate the impact of climate change, which is already under way, is for global security and economic stability a national issue, not a political one. I shall not dwell on my concerns about the reduction in government resources that will potentially result from our problems on Brexit. Notwithstanding any of this, by utilising long-term investment resources we could play a leading role in this area of critical importance to the planet, and we must.

Nuclear Safeguards (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, further to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, this is one of the reasons why the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Cunningham of Felling, stated in paragraph 14 of its helpful report published on 13 December 2018 that these regulations raise issues of public policy which require them to be drawn specifically to the attention of the House.

At paragraph 11, the committee explains that it asked the department why the Euratom safeguard standards—which are higher than international standards—could not be met on day one after exit. The noble Lord’s department, BEIS, told the committee that:

“ONR aims to have the required capacity and capability to deliver a regime equivalent in effectiveness and coverage to that currently delivered by Euratom by December 2020”.


I imagine that this is a very real concern to the House. Does the Minister accept that on exit day it will not be possible to maintain the standards currently enjoyed under Euratom, and that it will take until December 2020 to do so? If that is the case, does he really think it is acceptable?

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Pannick, for restating the issue that I raised under the last statutory instrument. It is of concern to both the House and the public. Could my noble friend outline for us in what way the regime that will exist from March 2019 will be deficient relative to the regime that exists, once we reach the Euratom standards in 2020? I understand that, as of March, we will not have the required number of trained inspectors. We have inspectors sufficient for the international standards—which are lower than Euratom—but in what way would the regime be different?

Nuclear Safeguards (Fissionable Material and Relevant International Agreements) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

My Lords, once again I thank the Minister for his introduction. Although the regulations have been decoupled, my remarks, like those of the Minister, were in a comprehensive single form, but I am happy to bring forward one or two questions on these regulations.

These new regulations on fissionable material conform to and appear to be equivalent to those pertaining under Euratom. This is important for our international agreements and for confidence that the UK takes its responsibilities on nuclear safeguarding very seriously. Regarding the international agreements, it has been encouraging to see the confirmation of new NCAs with the US, Canada and Australia. The Minister will recall that anxieties were expressed during the passage of the Bill that it might not be possible to achieve them. Can the Minister allay any fears that may arise over Japan? I understand that there is already a historic agreement with Japan going back to 1998. Discussions to review it have been mentioned. Is it only a formality that talks are going on with Japan concerning the UK’s confirmation on leaving the EU? Will the Minister settle any anxieties about the time it seems to have taken to review this with Japan when the other three nations have already agreed the NCAs, and allay any misgivings that may have arisen following any issues in discussions with Japan concerning new nuclear investments in north Wales?

The consultation seems to have been extremely productive. The recommendations have been taken on by the department and the regulations have been amended to be consistent with those discussions.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

I hesitate to participate in this debate, given that this is a very complex issue, but I imagine that members of the public and the industry would wish to be assured that the House is scrutinising issues of such significance from the point of view of public safety. I note that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee drew these draft regulations to the attention of the House in view of the important issues of public policy.

I note from the committee’s report that there will be ways in which our nuclear safeguards will be deficient after March 2019 relative to Euratom, notwithstanding that they meet international obligations. I would be grateful if my noble friend could help the House understand in what way those deficiencies will manifest themselves in the event that we leave with no deal or, if we leave with a withdrawal agreement, during the interim period—before, as I understand it, our standards will meet the Euratom standards by the end of 2020.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I hope that I can deal with most of the points that have been made in the debate by noble Lords. If I miss any, perhaps on Regulation 4, we will be able to catch up on them. The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, said that he had only one speech for both sets of regulations but I am sure that he will want to come in again if I fail to address his points.

First, the noble Lord asked whether we needed an NCA with Euratom. I can give an assurance that an NCA is not required for these regulations. Secondly, he regretted what he described as the demise of the nuclear industry. It is sad that last Thursday we had to make the announcement that I think he was referring to. I offered to repeat the Statement made by my right honourable friend in another place but, sadly, the House did not feel that necessary.

It is obviously a difficult situation, although I do not accept that we are looking at the demise of the nuclear industry—I think that it has a future. Being one of the world’s great optimists, the noble Lord should remember that some of the problems facing new developments in the nuclear industry—and we are still committed to seeing what we can do there—are possibly down to the success that we have seen in renewables, with the costs of offshore, onshore, wind and solar coming down. That makes the costs of nuclear, for example, much harder to deal with. We would like to bring those costs down but I do not think that they are likely to drop as much as has happened in the case of some renewables. Similarly, the costs of renewables include the cost of electricity storage, which, again, is coming down. Therefore, I suspect that the noble Lord, rather than being a Jeremiah, should always take a positive approach to changes and always look on the bright side of life, if that is possible.

I turn to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I am grateful that he referred to the debate in another place on 14 January, and I will certainly pass on to my honourable friend Richard Harrington the noble Lord’s welcome for his response to that debate, which I think dealt with most of the points that he raised. However, in my incompetence, I muddied the water and raised further points for the noble Lord. I hope that I will be able to deal with his concerns relating to additional qualifying material and the extra information required for the Secretary of State.

On additional qualifying material, all operators will provide accountancy and control plans to the ONR. That is a new requirement, which will come into effect in January 2021. The noble Lord also asked about the principal requirements of Regulation 45, which concerns the notification of receipt, production and transfer. That regulation requires an operator of a qualifying nuclear facility or other person to notify the Secretary of State of the receipt of a relevant item or qualifying nuclear material, the production, processing, derivation or fabrication of a relevant item from another relevant item or from obligated qualifying nuclear material, and the proposed transfer of a relevant item, together with details of the transferee and their location.

I turn to the process for NCAs and the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, particularly in relation to Japan. I made it clear that we had concluded new agreements with Canada, the US and Australia. The situation is slightly different with Japan, in that, as I think I made clear in my opening remarks, a bilateral NCA is already in place. It will remain in place following the UK’s departure from the EU and therefore it is not necessary to conclude a new one. We have had detailed discussions on this and are in negotiations to ensure that we have appropriate arrangements in place with Japan to allow the agreement to remain operable after our exit from Euratom.

I note the remarks made by my noble friend Lady Altmann on the comments from whichever committee it was regarding these orders. I give an assurance that, with these orders, we are making sure that we have broad equivalence; we will have the same protection in place as existed before.

Better Regulation

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe on securing this important debate. The Government are right to want to reduce regulatory burdens and I commend their intention to do so. I also agree that if we are to have mountains of statutory instruments placed before Parliament as a result of Brexit, somehow the time devoted to new regulatory legislation will need to be controlled. There are only a limited number of hours available. I support the Government’s aim to introduce a more proportionate and efficient system. A somewhat more permissive and hopefully simplified regime is understandable. However, we must be concerned to ensure that we do not then allow all departments a free-for-all to certify measures as having an impact on business of below £5 million and thus bypass scrutiny.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, rightly outlined, there is concern if the impact assessments coming before the Regulatory Policy Committee are truly going to fall from around 700 to around 18. We must surely not reduce our efforts to protect the public, so random assessments of departments’ measures that are not put before the Regulatory Policy Committee are surely absolutely essential. Indeed, rather than diluting the RPC, I wonder whether we should beef up its powers and whether now is the time to consider putting it on a statutory footing, as I believe happens in other countries such as Germany, Norway and the Netherlands, or awarding it independent verification body status. Will my noble friend let us know whether such measures might be under consideration?

In addition, will my noble friend reassure the House that, when making impact assessments, the impact on the public will be more carefully assessed than appears often to have been the case in the past? Additionally, I believe that although there is a laudable intention to ensure that regulation is regularly scrutinised to ensure that it is working as intended, the promised post-implementation reviews have been relatively few and far between. The purpose of regulation is largely to protect the public and wider society, so the absence of sufficient checks is surely of concern when deciding about the impact of regulation.

I am particularly concerned that departments may pay too little attention to the wider impacts on the general public. The department’s answer to Question HL3424, asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, states that,

“societal impacts … are agreed by senior civil service analysts and … signed off by Chief Economists”.

Is that really good enough? Surely the impacts on the wider public are crucial and require more independent input from user groups and others who are perhaps better placed, and certainly well placed, to judge the impact of those regulations. Perhaps we need to find ways to ensure that departments are incentivised to consider and produce such reports.

Regulations should also bear in mind the people who are using them and who are supposed to benefit from them. For example, it turned out that product warnings that something could be fatal were not well understood by the public and that changing the wording to “Solvent abuse can kill suddenly” was rather more effective.

The original idea was that we need regulation, but it would wither away in most sectors to be replaced by competition. However, in many cases there is just too much asymmetry between the parties involved and the public, so ordinary consumers need the protection of well-designed regulation to ensure that they are treated fairly.

An excellent example of such asymmetry in both information and power is, of course, in my area of pensions. Failure of regulation has too often had dire consequences. For example, it is almost 10 years to the day since the Labour Government, thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Hain, who was then Secretary of State at DWP, agreed to compensate steelworkers and 150,000 others who had lost their entire occupational pensions. Despite years of contributions and assurances that they were protected by legislation, it was discovered that those regulations designed to protect them had actually stripped them of their pensions entirely. The regulations were well-meaning, but failed. There are, of course, many other examples.

Too often, it seems that provider companies may have captured the regulators or the regulatory thinking. It is also important to listen to small firms, as my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe rightly said, and the impact on wider society must not be ignored. In that context, excessive complexity not only hinders economic activity and creates unnecessary burdens but also prevents consumers understanding what is going on and what regulations are meant to achieve.

However, there is little incentive to ensure simplicity or to avoid adding further to our already complicated web of legislation. A good example of how complexity can be damaging, particularly to small businesses, is in the area of automatic enrolment, where the rules are unbelievably complicated. For a large firm that can pay consultants to manage it all, it is fine, but for a small firm the complexities often cause enormous cost and concern. Simplification is an aim that I hope many departments will follow as we move forward, but there are too many examples in the pensions arena of where complexity has been introduced. I hope that departments will take note of that need for simplification.

Governments must ensure effective oversight of regulated industry, whether energy, nuclear, infrastructure and so on, and there are bound to be some interactions between political considerations and the regulations. Indeed, the complexities of competition and technological advances mean that it is important that Governments ensure regulated industries are operating to achieve the desired policy objectives. But for this to work well, transparency is vital, and transparency can be hindered by that complexity—or, indeed, by the frequent changes that so often occur.

Another example is in the residential landlord sector, where I must declare an interest as a private landlord. There are many important regulations—on gas, electricity and furniture safety, for example—but, despite this, there is inadequate enforcement by local authorities, as has been highlighted by other noble Lords. It is true that many councils have introduced licensing schemes to try to enforce the regulatory requirements, but the unscrupulous landlords do not join in.

In legal services, again the Treasury rightly says that independent regulation is important to make sure markets for essential services work fairly. However, the legal services profession is calling for regulation to be independent of the profession, in order to address not only any possible conflicts of interest but even the perception of such conflicts. The Competition and Markets Authority looked into the legal profession and confirmed that the independence of a regulator from the providers is a key principle that should be taken into account in any review of the framework. Can my noble friend the Minister say when the promised consultation on regulatory independence will be published?

Finally, we have skilled drafters and a professional Civil Service committed to reform and innovation and to effective regulation. But a note for civil servants raised a wry smile when I came across it the other day. After saying, rightly, that regulations should always be,

“transparent, targeted, consistent, and in proportion to the risk”—

absolutely correct—and calling for,

“incentives to encourage those causing the risk to change their behaviour”,

it goes on to say:

“Watch out, by the way, for the implications for middle class journalists. For instance, when designing policies affecting employees, think carefully about their impact on au pairs. Or when changing education policy, how will it affect Montessori schools? You attack the freedom of the press at your peril!”.


I hope, in the context of Brexit, that if we do proceed with this enormous task, the interests of the public will be paramount, rather than us just worrying about the media.

Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point. Certainly, some 20% of those on zero-hours contracts are students who are using it to top up. Equally, people who have retired use it to top up, and it is much less satisfactory for people for whom it is their main source of income. One point that Matthew Taylor makes in his report, and it is a good point, is that some employers are quite lazy about this: they do not have to schedule the hours properly because they know that they have people on tap. One of his recommendations in the report is to address that issue.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Naseby]

Normally I would not respond to that but I think perhaps the noble Baroness would recognise the seniority of a privy counsellor in this House. However, I will stand by and sit down for a second. Go on, get up.

[Baroness Altmann]

I thank my noble friend. I congratulate Matthew Taylor on his excellent report and I particularly congratulate the Government on achieving record levels of employment and record low unemployment. It is important that we recognise the benefits to this country’s employment market of flexibility. We have achieved great success; indeed, I point out that when I was business champion for older workers, I found that it is not only students who welcome zero-hours contracts, it is also older people. Does the Minister agree that we need to recognise the increasing importance for people in a pre-retirement phase of being able to work flexibly, part-time and zero hours? Indeed, when McDonald’s offered all its workers on zero-hours contracts the opportunity of fixed contacts, 80% said they wanted to stay on the zero-hours contracts.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I thank my noble friend for her contribution. Of course, flexibility suits older people greatly and is something much to be encouraged. The great success of the British way is that we have very high levels of employment. The great weakness of the British way is that we have very low levels of earnings, and that is something that we are going to address through the industrial strategy.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome my noble friend Lord Callanan to his role and wish him success. I am delighted to follow so many significant contributions, including the two excellent maiden speeches, in this important debate on the gracious Speech.

With today’s focus on economic issues, I congratulate the Government on achieving the highest UK employment rate since records began. Global firms have been investing here, taking advantage of our business-friendly environment and successful labour markets. We must protect this. A hard-left economic agenda would, in my view, do dreadful damage, as indeed would a hard-right or no-deal Brexit.

I welcome the Government’s proposals for the national living wage, increased housebuilding, protecting critical infrastructure and encouraging electric vehicle use to build on the UK’s leading position in this area. I am proud that the Government will continue supporting international action on climate change, which poses a real threat to younger generations. Another threat to the British economy is the worrying resurgence in consumer debt levels, which rose 10% last year. We know that excess borrowing and irresponsible lending preceded the 2008 crisis. I certainly support the financial guidance Bill to help consumers manage their finances and debts better, although more needs to be done to control consumer debt.

I also welcome the Bills to improve the treatment of mental ill-health and tackle injustice. However, there was a serious omission from proposed anti-discrimination measures. The Queen’s Speech rightly calls for an end to prejudice on the basis of gender, faith, race, disability or sexuality, but what about age? Can my noble friend the Minister explain why this was missing? Reducing immigration makes it increasingly important to tackle the ageism that still pervades Britain’s labour market. With an ageing population, the more we can encourage full-time or part-time later-life working, the better the economic outlook. This is not about favouring older generations over younger ones; it is about ensuring that everyone has opportunities to work and contribute to the economy and their own economic welfare. Too often employers overlook the talents, dedication and experience of older staff, whether in training or recruitment for new roles. In this context, I also welcome the new institutes of technology to improve young people’s technical skills, but we need an adult stream, too. Lifelong learning, mature apprenticeships and reskilling can help the British labour market stay world-class, improve productivity and enhance growth.

Another important issue for the economy and its resilience is corporate finance. In particular, I am concerned about the significant advantage for debt finance over equity. Stamp duty is paid on UK equities, while debt is subsidised by taxpayers and favoured by regulators. Having spent many years in investment management, I find this bias against equity capital concerning. Equity financing was invented in the UK and helps businesses drive innovation with the support of patient, long-term capital. Leaving the EU would make this even more important.

I had the privilege of opening the London Stock Exchange last Friday and it struck me that every trade in a British company attracted a tax charge, whereas each non-UK company trade did not. It is estimated that the tax comprises 70% of UK equity trading costs. Pension funds and insurers have dramatically reduced equity holdings in recent years, removing some of the underlying support for British business. As auto-enrolment brings millions more workers into long-term investing and quantitative easing continues to depress bond yields, the nation’s long-term economic interest could be boosted by levelling the playing field for equity versus debt finance, encouraging more activity in public equity markets, rather than private equity, as well as encouraging pension funds to invest in growth and job-creating British infrastructure.

Finally, the central theme of the forthcoming legislative programme revolves around arrangements for leaving the EU. From an economic perspective, I wholeheartedly support the wise words of my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who urges prioritising jobs and prosperity during our journey of separation from the EU. The British people voted to be better off, not worse off. They did not vote to jeopardise our economy, manufacturing and services industries and all the jobs that depend on them— and what about immigration? From a demographic and economic point of view, immigration is essential for our economy. As our ageing population is moving into retirement with fewer younger people to support them, immigration has helped to power economic growth.

Leaving the EU single market, customs union and EEA by 2019 would be disastrous. Yes, Britain is great. We have strength, ingenuity, scientific brilliance and resilience but without a more conciliatory, co-operative approach to Brexit the economy is at risk. I believe that logical, rather than ideological, economic arguments are needed now. I hope my noble friend the Minister and many colleagues on these Benches can work with others in the national interest to help us better achieve success and future prosperity.