Spending Review 2020

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Buscombe (Con) [V]]

My Lords, finally we have recognised the critical need to increase, in real terms, our defence spending. The key point was the Prime Minister’s reference to a unit that will be set up to monitor procurement. Five years’ ago, industry personnel told me—lawyer speaking to lawyer—that they would welcome much more rigour in the procurement system. This is critical to counter equipment that arrives too often substandard with long lead-times for spare parts. We also need a strong focus on what inexpensive measures would significantly improve the capabilities of our armed forces personnel—such as much healthier food and natural light replacements in our modern warships—as well as the expensive hardware.

In addition, it is right to reduce to our development spend to 0.5% of GNI in the light of our economic emergency. This crisis also presents a real opportunity to fully review the DAC rules on which we classify our ODA spending.

I have just one thought regarding our spending at home: when I left the DWP, pre Covid, our welfare system was already unsustainable. Although 1,000 additional people were working each day and there were around 700,000 job vacancies, still 13.9% of all working-age households in the UK were entirely workless. This is not sustainable post Covid.

Separately, our reliance on the private sector to create the wealth to pay for all this is fundamental. However, we are now at risk of making the UK the least attractive shopping destination in Europe through changes to tax-free shopping rules that will trigger real and negative behavioural change in high-spending visitors. Post Brexit, we must showcase the very best of the British-made, high-quality and often bespoke for export goods that we manufacture right across the UK. How will these tax changes help with so-called levelling up when some of those highly skilled jobs could now be at risk? Will my noble friend the Minister agree to keep a close watch on this?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)]

I remind noble Lords that the speaking limit for today’s debate is two minutes.