The UK’s Demographic Future

Baroness Finn Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by putting on record my gratitude for the contributions in this House by my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts over 25 years, ahead of his retirement. I have been a Member of your Lordships’ House for only 10 of those years, but it has been an honour and a pleasure to serve alongside him during this time. He has been an active and effective Member of your Lordships’ House and will be greatly missed. The heartfelt tributes from noble Lords across the House today are testimony to this undeniable truth.

I am delighted to take part in this debate to take note of the report Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow. The issues it raises speak to one of the most consequential policy challenges of our age—the demographic future of the United Kingdom. Its authors demand that we confront an unavoidable truth: demographics shape everything. They shape our economy, public services, environment, culture, infrastructure and welfare system. Demographic change is one of the least discussed, understood and planned-for forces in British public life. As the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, pointed out, we should not be afraid to discuss it. My noble friend Lady Verma made an eloquent case in her extraordinarily powerful speech that issues of demography and integration have been swerved for far too long.

My noble friend’s report is wide ranging and detailed. It is evidently the result of extensive research and proposes a number of recommendations which we should consider carefully. I congratulate him on it. One of its most impressive features is that it shines a light on so many of the areas impacted by rapid population growth—biodiversity, national security, water and food security, public services and our ageing population.

Increasing migration is undoubtedly a major challenge, as the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, among many others, has consistently warned. This report makes the point that, without firm population controls and forward planning, the pressures on public services, infrastructure and the environment will become unmanageable. We need to consider how to develop a mechanism to ensure that migration numbers are sustainable, predictable and aligned with the nation’s capacity to absorb them, delivering in effect the long-term planning framework that the report calls for.

The report emphasises that current demographic trends, in particular high net migration, are placing substantial burdens on housing, healthcare, education and welfare infrastructure, and warns that, if present patterns continue, the United Kingdom could become one of the most populous countries in Europe within a few decades. Yet, crucially, population growth does not guarantee an increase in living standards. Indeed, as the report notes, rising aggregate GDP often masks falling GDP per capita, stagnant productivity and declining real wages. Relying on ever-increasing population levels to boost headline GDP is a false economy. This point was well made by my noble friend Lord Horam. What matters is what working families feel and living standards per person, not size of the population as a whole.

Economic success must be built on higher productivity, better skills and strong domestic labour participation, not continually importing labour to compensate for structural weaknesses. Relying on low-skilled migration is not the answer, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, emphasised. We must prioritise our own skills programmes and address urgently and directly the challenge of upskilling our own workforce.

The report warns repeatedly that using immigration to prop up GDP growth or to compensate for an ageing population will lead to long-term fiscal strain. My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe spoke persuasively on this point. Even if population growth does not reach that extreme, the medium-term projections still point to the UK adding around 10 million people in the next 20 years, driven overwhelmingly by immigration. For this reason, we need some kind of mechanism to manage migration, combined with reforms to the visa system to ensure that only genuinely high-skilled applicants earning at or above the required thresholds can come to the UK. This is about controlling a rate of change so that population levels remain manageable, aligned with public sentiment and consistent with the nation’s capacity to provide.

The report underscores the need to align population growth with housing and infrastructure. The Government have pledged 1.5 million new homes in the next Parliament. Although that is an important commitment, the report rightly notes that, without careful planning, new supply will struggle to keep pace with population increase. Again, this point was picked up by my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe. House prices have already been driven up significantly, in part because demand has far outstripped supply. If the population grows by over 6 million by 2035, as some projections suggest, then 1.5 million homes alone will not stabilise prices or alleviate overcrowding, unless accompanied by strategic planning and major infrastructure investment.

The report rightly highlights public services, with strain already evident across the NHS, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, pointed out. Waiting lists remain above pre-pandemic levels, and the report’s projections make it clear that, without careful planning, an additional 10 million would further exacerbate pressures. As the report notes, migration-driven growth increases demand for healthcare, while the fiscal contributions of migrants vary considerably depending on skill level and integration.

We need to shift our immigration system firmly toward high-skilled, high-contributing migrants, while simultaneously investing in domestic training. This is particularly the case when it comes to medicine, social care and essential public service roles. At present, over 20,000 British-trained doctors each year do not secure specialist training places, yet we continue to rely heavily on internationally trained staff to fill NHS vacancies. This is not sustainable. We need to expand domestic clinical training capacity and apprenticeships to ensure that young people in the UK can enter professions where they are desperately needed.

On welfare, the report emphasises the importance of fiscal sustainability, noting that population growth alone will not resolve pressures on the welfare state and pensions. Indeed, depending on the composition and productivity of the population, it can worsen them. That is why we must prioritise making work pay, tightening welfare eligibility and strengthening incentives for labour market participation.

This report paints a picture of a country at a demographic crossroads, as the noble Lord, Lord Frost, demonstrated. There is no doubt that, if we continue with unmanaged population growth, relying on immigration as a short-term economic remedy, we will face mounting pressures on service housing, infrastructure and social cohesion—although my noble friend Lord Sarfraz did make an excellent case for robots to swerve these problems. We need to consider more carefully how we manage migration, with a focus on selective high-skill immigration, domestic skills investment, welfare reform and a coherent long-term housing and infrastructure strategy.

Can the Minister explain how the Government intend to develop a long-term demographic strategy that addresses these points? Will the Government ensure that population projections inform policy across departments, from housing and transport to healthcare and welfare? Will they finally accept that migration cannot remain the default solution to labour shortages and economic challenges? There can be no doubt that, as we consider the current challenges our country faces and the country our children stand to inherit, we cannot shy away from these issues. We must consider the issues that this report raises and have an answer to the central question of how we intend to reduce our reliance on immigration and focus much more on increasing our productivity and domestic skills and on building a sustainable economy.

These are just some of the key challenges and questions which the Government face. It is not possible to reflect the full range of challenges that are highlighted in the report in my remarks today, but I am pleased that noble Lords have been able to bring so many of these themes and core challenges to the fore in their contributions, such as the environmental factors that were referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, the fertility issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Frost, and especially the strains on social cohesion, which a number of noble Lords, such as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester and my noble friend Lord Blencathra highlighted. Other issues and problems were eloquently demonstrated by my noble friend Lady Buscombe.

As my noble friend Lord Hodgson highlights in the foreword of his report, the British have been repeatedly promised a policy by political parties of all stripes that would focus on admitting a limited number of highly skilled or creative individuals: a policy with which few would disagree. Instead, they have seen virtually uncontrolled numbers of primarily lower-skilled individuals. The debate today has been a good opportunity to consider why we have seen those levels of immigration, with their consequential impact, in the past, and, most importantly, to ask ourselves what steps must be taken to put us on the right track for the future.

Looking to the recommendations, my noble friend proposes a twin-track approach, with a new responsibility placed on government alongside a new body to monitor the Government’s objectives and provide research on that policy. I entirely accept the premise that demographic policy currently lacks coherence. With responsibility fragmented across the Home Office, the Department for Education, the DWP and the Cabinet Office, each one pursuing its own objectives with little regard for the whole, we have a system that is nobody’s responsibility.

On data, the report recommends that the Government should be required to monitor and disclose the likely level of population change in the near and long term. This touches on a point of real concern to noble Lords on these Benches. It was a little over two weeks ago that my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough forced Ministers to review and publish the data that is held on the number of students who have had their visas revoked due to criminality during the progress of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. The Government initially resisted publication of that data. On issues as important as demography, the Government should be seeking to build greater trust with the British people. Refusing to publish data has the opposite effect. Can the Minister please reassure your Lordships’ House that the Government will take a more positive attitude towards requests for additional data in the future?

While we are on the issue of data, I briefly mention that my honourable friend Nick Timothy MP asked Ministers in the other place last month whether the Government planned to release data on the economic contributions by different profiles of migrants, in line with the Danish model. The Minister refused. As the report highlights, better data and greater transparency are essential. I hope that the Minister can give us an assurance that Ministers are seriously reviewing the current publications, with a view to improving transparency.

The report includes a recommendation for a new authority, to be called the Office for Demographic Change, ODC, or Office for Population Sustainability, OPS. My noble friend is right that Ministers should consider our existing structures for monitoring immigration and population over time—not to mention emigration, which is of such concern when those choosing to leave the country are our wealth creators and high-skilled young people starting out in their careers. We need the right mechanisms for monitoring and reporting, so that Parliament and, in turn, the British people have the information they need to make informed choices about the future of demographic policy. My noble friend Lord Horam brilliantly explained the importance of long-term monitoring. I am personally always sceptical of the creation of new NDPBs as, over time, public bodies often come to establish their own institutional views. I would be interested to hear from my noble friend how he would plan to mitigate that risk, but there is certainly a strong case for some such body.

My noble friend Lord Hodgson is absolutely right with his core thesis. Ministers must be held to account and we should continue to explore new and tougher processes by which we can hold the Government to account on the future demography of our country. Finally, it only remains to congratulate my noble friend on securing this debate on the day that he has chosen to make his valedictory speech. The debate, which has touched on so many of the core challenges we face as a nation, is a testament to his commitment to building a brighter future for our country as a devoted public servant. I know I speak for the whole House in wishing him all the very best in his next chapter outside your Lordships’ House.

Covid-19 Inquiry

Baroness Finn Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing to the House this Statement on the government response to the Covid-19 inquiry module 1 report. I thank the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, for her leadership and the work of her team. I pay tribute to those who lost their lives and to the families who continue to grieve. Their loss is not just a memory but a standing rebuke to complacency—a warning against the easy comfort of forgetting. If this inquiry is to mean anything, it must ensure that the failures of the past are never repeated.

The Government’s response recognises those failures, but recognition is not the same as resolution. The inquiry lays bare what went wrong. Lives were lost not because those in government or on the front line lacked effort or intention but because the system they relied on was too slow, too complex and too poorly maintained. The structures for emergency response were fatally flawed, with too many competing voices and unclear lines of authority. When the crisis hit, leaders lacked the information they needed to make informed decisions quickly. Vital data was unavailable, inconsistent or siloed. Worst of all, preparedness had been allowed to slip down the priority list. Without a recent crisis to focus the mind, plans had gathered dust. When they were finally needed, they were out of date or prepared for another type of pandemic.

We broadly welcome the steps that the Government have taken, especially to ensure that the Cabinet Office has a clearer and stronger role in crisis and resilience co-ordination. I appreciate that the Government have clearly signalled their intention to build on the work started by the last Government. The Resilience Directorate should provide clearer leadership. The resilience academy will help build expertise. A full-scale pandemic exercise is a necessary step in testing our ability to respond. These are real improvements, and we support them.

However, there is still much more to do. Preparedness must not be something that the Government remember only when disaster strikes. A culture of resilience should be embedded across the system, with clear accountability for ensuring that it does not fade from view. The Government’s response does not go far enough in simplifying the system. Complexity was a core failing in our pandemic response, yet we are in danger of replacing one tangle of bureaucracy with another. Data sharing remains a critical weakness, and without an efficient way to collect, share and use real-time information, we will make the same mistakes again.

That is why recommendation 10 is the wrong answer. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, calls for simplification, yet her recommendation to establish yet another arm’s-length body would add another layer of complexity. A new statutory body, given responsibility for strategic advice, assessment, local consultation and national capability planning, is simply too broad in scope. A body that is simultaneously an adviser, a regulator, a strategy setter and a watchdog will be a body that lacks focus. Instead of bringing clarity, it will muddy decision-making. Instead of streamlining the system, it will entangle it further. Instead of ensuring resilience, it will create yet another institution competing for influence within an already crowded space.

If independent oversight is needed, let it be exactly that—an assessment function that checks government preparedness against a clear framework set by Ministers, not a permanent fixture with an ever-growing remit. Otherwise, we risk creating a body that spends its time lobbying Ministers for its own recommendations, regardless of whether they are useful or practical. When disaster strikes, there must be no doubt about who is responsible, who is making the decisions and who is accountable to the public.

There are, of course, deeper questions that must be answered. How will we measure progress? Unless we have clear benchmarks, improvement is just an illusion. Without real accountability and framework clarity, the reviews, consultations and task forces risk being temporary solutions. Working out what to do is the easy part. The hard part is ensuring rigorous implementation backed up by data. Is there data to support the whole-system emergency strategy? In recommendation 7, the report asked for three-month publications to report back the findings of the nationwide investigations. Can the Minister speak to that?

Why is this inquiry taking so long? Lessons that could save lives should already be implemented. The Government speak of a duty of candour, but honesty is already required in the Civil Service Code. Yet as numerous inquiries such as Horizon, infected blood and Grenfell have demonstrated, it has not delivered transparency in the past, so how will this now be ensured? Above all, how do we ensure that this inquiry does not become just another exercise in bureaucratic introspection? We have seen too many reports whose conclusions are welcomed, debated, nodded at solemnly and quietly ignored. This cannot be one of them. The Government have not yet responded to last year’s House of Lords Statutory Inquiries Committee report on reforming the process by which public inquiries are conducted, and the committee has said it is unacceptable that so many recommendations have not been implemented. I call on the Government to consider last year’s report. Can the Minister provide an update on the timely implementation of the recommendations? So far, only one recommendation has been implemented.

Resilience is not built through process. It is not achieved by handing responsibly to another statutory body. It is built through strong leadership, clear accountability and a system that is ready to act when the moment demands. The Government’s response is a step in the right direction, but we must go further and move faster because the next crisis will not wait. When it comes, the true test will not be whether we have created another agency, or published another report, but whether we are finally and fully prepared to respond.

Civil Servants: Compulsory Office Attendance

Baroness Finn Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Farmer for securing this important debate on whether civil servants should be obliged to work from their offices or their own homes. It has been prompted by not only the recent strike action in the UK’s Land Registry but the broader shift in working practices in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is an issue that speaks to the heart of productivity and the future of public service delivery.

Amid the upheavals of the pandemic, our GDP remained surprisingly robust, in part thanks to the last Government’s furlough scheme. The resilience of the economy showed that remote work, for some parts of the workforce, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, observed, not only was feasible but could be effective. However, my noble friend Lord Frost is absolutely correct that, while the private sector continues to improve its output, public sector productivity continues to lag well behind. This disparity has contributed to the growing backlog in public services that in turn hinders wider economic growth. We face significant budget deficits, a high level of national indebtedness and backlogs in courts and hospitals and elsewhere. We simply cannot afford to ignore the need for drastically increased productivity within the public sector, particularly in our Civil Service.

Can the Minister provide statistics on the number of civil servants who, first, have contracts that expressly allow them to work from home, and what proportion of them exclusively so; secondly, have informal arrangements with their management that permit them to work from home but with no revised contracts; and, thirdly, have no formal arrangements but none the less continue to work remotely? Do the Government have plans to allow civil servants to make other revisions to their terms and conditions by stealth, or is the intention simply to let remote work arrangements proliferate unchecked? If so, what safeguards are in place to ensure that these changes do not undermine the effective delivery of public services? Who within the Government holds the authority to stop civil servants working from home? Does the Prime Minister or the Cabinet Secretary, or is such discretion left to individual departments with no overarching leadership on this issue?

There are also practical implications, such as how much unused government office space exists within Whitehall and beyond. Can the Minister provide us with statistics on these costs? As my noble friend Lord Farmer said, taxpayers deserve to know whether their money is being spent effectively, and users of public services—the public—deserve better services.

Senior civil servants should generally be required to return to the office full-time by default. Not only does this demonstrate that office working is important but it sends a strong message to junior colleagues. As my noble friends Lord Farmer and Lord Maude of Horsham observed, there is immense value in learning through observation, mentoring and collaboration with peers. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, argued, remote work has the advantage of flexibility, but it is no substitute for working alongside colleagues in an office environment.

A failure to grapple with an issue so fundamental raises serious concerns about the Government’s ability to tackle the more challenging issues of Civil Service reform. In lieu of ambitions to streamline the state to 2016 levels, we instead have the Cabinet Office’s voluntary redundancy scheme, which falls short of what is required. Recent inflation-busting pay rises for civil servants have not been linked to any measurable improvements in productivity.

The most successful organisations in the private sector have made office working most of the time compulsory. Working from home cannot be treated as a right. As my noble friend Lord Maude so rightly observed, business need must always be paramount. The Government must act decisively and embrace the necessary reforms to ensure that public services deliver what the public expect and need.

Renewable Energy: Costs

Baroness Finn Excerpts

Thursday 14th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register, specifically my chairmanship of Project Tempo, a non-profit organisation which researches public attitudes towards the energy and climate transition. I thank my noble friend Lord Frost for this important and timely debate.

My right honourable friend the leader of His Majesty’s Opposition is right that we need to tell the truth. Over the last few years, successive Governments have set more and more ambitious emissions reduction targets, without a plan for how to meet them. We urgently need an honest debate about the different pathways to decarbonising our economy. The road is paved with trade-offs, and we must choose which ones to make.

I want to make two observations. The first is that British voters overwhelmingly support the ambition of getting to net zero. Project Tempo’s research shows that the public care about protecting the environment and want us, as a country, to do the right thing. However, it also shows that public support for green policies declines dramatically when individuals are asked to pay for them through higher energy bills, prices or taxes.

The second observation is that British energy prices are going in the wrong direction, and have been since well before the war in Ukraine. Data from the energy department shows that between 2010 and 2023, domestic electricity bills almost doubled in real terms, and data recently published in the Financial Times showed that the UK’s industrial electricity costs were among the highest in the world, more than four times those of the United States or China, and significantly higher than those of all other G7 economies. This is a profound challenge.

Our globally uncompetitive energy costs not only damage our productivity and economic growth, they risk undermining public support for the transition. If people come to associate green policies with higher bills, it will become much harder to maintain the public support that we need to reduce emissions and tackle climate change. That is why I was worried to read last week that the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that Labour’s plans for clean power by 2030 will see green levies rise by an average of £120 per household by the end of the decade. The recent report from the National Energy System Operator also suggested that energy system costs could rise as a result of Labour’s plans.

We ought to pursue the mix of technologies that will reduce energy bills, protect national security and drive growth in our economy. Unfortunately, the Government’s policy will do exactly the opposite. Their ideological rush towards accelerated targets will send prices higher and exclude the development of other forms of clean energy such as nuclear, which would help us hedge the costs involved in decarbonising the grid. Can I press upon the Minister the importance of new nuclear and ask him to set out briefly the position on the Wylfa plant in Ynys Môn?

We must tell the truth about the challenges we face, not pretend that inconvenient facts do not exist. The reality is that many of the Energy Secretary’s current plans entail borrowing enormous amounts of money and spending it on subsidising technologies which are not otherwise viable on the open market, or on importing more products from China. Before the election, the then Opposition promised that their plans would cut consumer energy bills by £300. That claim—which they continue to stand by—is bogus. My fear is that false promises such as that, and their general rush to accelerate the transition, risk undermining the very environmental action which so many of us wish to see. I look forward to hearing how the Minister will address these legitimate concerns.

Permanent Secretaries: Appointment and Removal (Constitution Committee Report)

Baroness Finn Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this debate on the appointment and dismissal of Permanent Secretaries and declare my interest as a member of the Constitution Committee and a former special adviser. I thank the clerks, my fellow committee members and especially the chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, for their careful navigation of this sensitive terrain—and for putting up with me. I also thank the witnesses who appeared before us and helped illuminate such a nuanced subject.

The appointment and dismissal of Permanent Secretaries are two of the most important powers exercised by a Prime Minister. Although it was considered heretical 15 years ago, today a Prime Minister exercising choice in the selection of Permanent Secretaries is widely accepted and formally codified in the Civil Service recruitment principles. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Maude for his tenacity in ensuring that this happened.

The power to dismiss, however, has not enjoyed the same degree of acceptance, for entirely understandable reasons. We can, no doubt, all recall instances where the dismissal of a Permanent Secretary may or may not have been justified. Some have been retired early, having openly revealed their private opposition to government policy, while others have been summarily dismissed on the basis of ministerial aversion to their supposedly orthodox views. In each case, the dismissal has been heavily debated. It is to be regretted that the United Kingdom does not, as in other jurisdictions, have any clear policies setting out the role of Ministers in the potential dismissal of Permanent Secretaries.

The Civil Service has since 2010 been underpinned by the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, or CRaG. It makes clear that all competitions for appointments to the Civil Service should be on the basis of merit, following a fair and open competition, and regulated by the independent Civil Service Commission. The Act, however, has its deficiencies. Although it formally provides for an independent commission, the commission is entirely dependent for its staffing, premises and budget on the Cabinet Office and its chief executive is line managed by the propriety and ethics directorate within the Cabinet Office, which in turn reports directly to the Cabinet Secretary.

The Act is also almost unique in the developed world in placing no direct controls on the promotion of existing civil servants through purely internal mechanisms. An internal exercise all but guarantees the selection of an existing civil servant and deprives, in most circumstances, the Civil Service Commission of its oversight function. I acknowledge the work of the Secretary of State at Defra, who, in his previous role as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, put in place a mechanism to ensure that all Civil Service vacancies had to be advertised externally by default, unless otherwise agreed by Ministers. It is telling that, according to the IfG report published today, only 22% of Permanent Secretaries have had experience in a leadership role outside government for more than three years.

To avoid the risk of the very highest positions being gifted through patronage, additional controls have been placed on the internal promotion of candidates to director-general and Permanent Secretary roles. This has been done through the statutory document known as the Civil Service Senior Appointments Protocol. It states that decisions on whether these posts will be advertised externally are reserved to a body called the Senior Leadership Committee and that all such vacancies shall be overseen by the Civil Service Commission, regardless of how they are advertised.

As we have heard, our committee found that the composition, role and influence of the Senior Leadership Committee were highly opaque matters. While the SLC includes the First Civil Service Commissioner and, I believe, the government lead non-executive director, its membership is still dominated by Permanent Secretaries. A more balanced composition, with clear ministerial accountability, would surely help ease some of the anxieties that exist around this committee.

Despite the protocol being a statutory policy issued under CRaG, we learned in evidence from the Cabinet Secretary that decisions on whether to advertise Permanent Secretary vacancies externally are apparently taken not by the Senior Leadership Committee but, in reality, bilaterally by the Cabinet Secretary and the First Civil Service Commissioner. That places us in the slightly anomalous position where law and administrative practice are at variance. The commitment from both the Cabinet Secretary and the First Civil Service Commissioner to update the senior appointments protocol is therefore welcome, although it is important to note that the power to vary that protocol is reserved by Section 17 of the Act to the Prime Minister, not the Cabinet Secretary.

I will end with a word about the role of special advisers in the appointments process. The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act expressly forbids special advisers authorising the expenditure of public money and exercising any management power in relation to the Civil Service. It does not, however, forbid their advising Ministers on either of those matters, which is an important distinction that, I think, our report fairly reflects.

There are many more points that I would like to make, but time does not allow. I therefore echo the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, in asking my noble friend the Minister when we can expect the updated protocol and the published terms and membership of the Senior Leadership Committee on GOV.UK.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Baroness Finn Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 28th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Parminter (LD)]

I will be very brief, as I do not want to prolong the discussion. In Committee, the Government made it clear that they would seriously consider the use of the national procurement policy statement as a vehicle to deliver the value-driven approach and support environmental and climate goals. The noble Lord, Lord True, said that they would reflect on that. Well, there has been no reflection. That is why it is so important—vital—that both the Labour Front Bench and the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, have come forward with two amendments today that will raise the importance and central role of the environment and climate change in the national procurement policy statement. I hope they test the opinion of the House on that, given that there is clearly a disagreement.

I support the point from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about Parliament having a say on this and a draft procurement policy statement being put forward. If the Government will not accept that, they need to explain to the House tonight why, if it was good enough for the Environment Act and the environmental principles policy statement, it is not good enough on this occasion.

I strongly believe that we should support the amendments, which make sure that procurement delivers values as well as good value.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, much has been made of the importance of social and environmental goals in public procurement. Of course, as many noble Lords have said, these goals have their place—but they should not be the driving force behind a procurement system, forcing it to run slowly and inefficiently and increasing cost to the public purse while disincentivising innovation and the participation of small businesses.

The Bill is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put in place a robust procurement system that encourages procurers to focus on outcomes that deliver productivity improvements and innovation, reduce the cost to the public purse, and drive efficiency. It should do away with unnecessary and excessive procedural requirements that make it much more difficult for smaller businesses to compete and grow.

We should not lose sight of the fact that there is already much flexibility in the Bill, which is good news for delivery on social and environmental principles. This flexibility is evident in the Bill from the very outset, with the objective to maximise the public benefit and to allow economic, social and environmental matters to be considered. When it comes to awarding contracts, Clause 22 allows for a broad range of award criteria to be included in procurements where they are relevant, including those relating to social and environmental aims.

The Bill also includes a facility for a specific expression of government policy in the form of the national procurement policy statement and the Wales procurement policy statement. These can be used to create obligations to consider social and environmental goals of the day, such as net zero, without compromising the importance of maintaining an efficient and workable procurement regime. That is why I agree with my noble friend the Minister that we must avoid at all costs the inclusion of broad and unfocused obligations in relation to social and environmental matters.

Amendments to the Bill that would place requirements on contracting authorities always to have to include social and environmental benefits when awarding their contracts would slow down the procurement regime and increase risk. They would also significantly disincentivise small and medium-sized enterprises, which do not have the back-office capability to maintain huge reams of social and environmental policies and practices.

In summary, I am heartened that the approach the Government are already taking in the Bill will allow contracting authorities the flexibility to deliver procurement outcomes that address these important social and environmental objectives on a case-by-case basis while retaining value for money at the forefront. With this Bill, we are leaving behind a slow and bureaucratic procurement system that is unnecessarily restrictive in nature. Let us not change one set of restrictive procurement practices for another.

[The Earl of Lindsay (Con)]

My Lords, in speaking to Amendments 58 and 82 in my name, I reiterate my support for the opportunity that the Bill offers to reduce burdens on business, especially small businesses, by simplifying the UK regulation of public procurement. I also welcome the Bill’s objective of promoting an open and accessible business culture and practices.

That said, we must be careful that important safeguards currently in place in public procurement are not mistakenly, unwittingly or lightly discarded, hence these two simple and straightforward amendments, Amendments 58 and 82, which align with the Bill’s overall objective. In speaking to them, I declare an interest as chair of the United Kingdom Accreditation Service, UKAS. As the national accreditation body for the UK, appointed in statute, UKAS is the sole body recognised by government for the accreditation of organisations providing testing, inspection and certification services, collectively referred to as conformity assessment bodies. In short, we check the checkers, against internationally recognised standards.

The current procurement legislation, the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, stipulates that where conformity assessment is required by a contracting authority as part of a public procurement exercise, that conformity assessment must be accredited. This requirement for accreditation occurs either where the technical specification in the procurement mandates conformity assessment, such as testing or certification, or where an economic operator—a supplier—is required to hold certification as part of its proof of technical competence or management capacity.

The requirement for accreditation within current public procurement legislation is there for a purpose. It provides critical safeguards. It means that the competence, integrity and impartiality of a body delivering a test, inspection or certification must have been verified against international standards, on an ongoing basis, by an independent third party—in other words, by the nationally appointed accreditation body. The removal of these safeguards, which would disappear as the Bill is drafted, could have unintended and damaging consequences. For example, a contracting authority could require products to be tested to a specified standard but, without the safeguard of accreditation, any test certificate would have to be accepted. There would be no assurance of the quality or rigour of either the test or the tester. We saw what happened during the Covid pandemic with the profusion of substandard products that had false or inadequate certificates.

The NHS, when procuring PPE or anything else where it is critical that a product conforms with a specified standard, needs to be able to rely on a robust certification process. Likewise, a contracting authority could require a supplier to have a certificate for its management system, environmental management system, information security system or anti-bribery management system. If the certifier does not need to be accredited to perform that certification, the contracting authority cannot be certain that the relevant certificate is from a body whose technical competence, capabilities and impartiality have been verified by a third party against internationally recognised standards, but the contracting authority would none the less be obliged to accept the certificate.

Hence the serious concerns about the Bill that have been expressed to UKAS by public sector procurers such as the Ministry of Defence. Noble Lords will understand that the MoD—apart from being one of the United Kingdom’s largest public sector procurers—is uneasy at the prospect of purchasing goods and services from companies whose management system certificates have been issued by bodies that might not have been accredited to perform those assessments. In case anyone is wondering, several certification bodies in the market are not accredited to or compliant with international standards. It is important to guard against the unintended consequences of encouraging the proliferation of non-compliant conformity assessment and accreditation practice and all the risk that involves. It is equally important to avoid undermining certification bodies that operate as nationally accredited entities.

The safeguards proposed by these two straightforward amendments are rooted in the United Kingdom’s national quality infrastructure, which in turn reflects global best practice. They also align with the WTO’s Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade and the Government’s commitment to international regulatory co-operation. Furthermore, they would bring the Bill into line with existing government policy on national accreditation.

In closing, I add that the drafting of these two amendments is also aimed at minimising trade barriers by recognising accreditation from any national accreditation body that is a signatory to the global mutual recognition agreements.

EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Baroness Finn Excerpts

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finn (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I refer to my interest as a board member of the Cabinet Office, and I warmly congratulate my noble friend Lord Wharton of Yarm on an excellent and apposite maiden speech. This trade deal is surely a case of beating expectations, and enormous credit goes to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and his negotiating team. A hugely significant breakthrough agreement over Northern Ireland paved the way for a trade deal that allows the UK to set our own laws and regulations, while delivering ongoing co-operation in key areas, such as health and security.

In fact, there is very little to object to in the trade deal. Of course, it is more what is not in it that is worthy of debate. A deal that does not go as far as some had hoped on services is necessarily limited, but this need not be limiting: opportunity lies where we can break new ground. Take financial services, for example: it is true that the EU has not yet granted the UK equivalence, which would ease market access—but, equally, this provides an opportunity to set our own rules, such as allowing pension funds to invest in infrastructure, an area where there has been chronic underinvestment.

To successfully go it alone, we will need to usher in a new era of leadership and accountability. This era demands a change in approach, across both Whitehall and Parliament. We can no longer blame the EU for having to implement unpalatable policies, or blame its bureaucracy when things do not go according to plan. Supporting business, rolling out the vaccine and setting our own immigration policy are now entirely in the hands of UK lawmakers, and, for all of them, we will be accountable to the British people.

However, to succeed, we need reform—to change our approach to the way we handle major strategic projects, the way we partner with business and the way we train and enable our domestic skills base. In our end is the beginning of a new relationship with Europe and a responsibility on us to make the most of our many opportunities.

Budget Statement

Baroness Finn Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak today. It is humbling to follow so many experienced, knowledgeable and very learned noble Lords. As others have mentioned, it is far from business as usual; as we have watched this crisis build ominous momentum, so we have waited to see the Government’s fiscal response. Of course, it is too early to say, but I sincerely hope that this is indeed the Chancellor’s “whatever it takes” moment.

On Monday, the Prime Minister rightly told the nation not to frequent bars, theatres or clubs, with a massive effect on those businesses and many more. However, on Tuesday they heard from the Chancellor that the Government would support them with £330 billion in loan guarantees to give firms access to cash. I very much welcome the package outlined by the Chancellor and appreciate that this is a fast-moving and uniquely challenging situation. However, I echo many other noble Lords in urging him to provide much-needed clarity and to consider additional measures to support the self-employed and businesses in the service, hospitality, retail and entertainment sectors.

No Conservative would want to see good money thrown after bad to support a failing industry, but that is not the situation we face. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of perfectly viable and profitable businesses which risk going under because of an act of God. The first duty of a Government is to protect their citizens, but they must also intervene now to reassure businesses that they will stand behind them. This cannot be just through loans; they will need tax holidays, cash injections and relief from PAYE and other pressures. The message must be clear to business owners: keep your staff on your books, the Government will support you. As a country, we will get through this terrible virus. However, if ever there was a role for government, it is here and now. We must ensure that our economy is strong and vibrant on the other side.

This extraordinary backdrop should not overshadow what I hope will be a critical change in measuring return on public investment—a rewriting of HMT Green Book rules. I welcome what my noble friend the Minister said about this. For years, this outdated Treasury methodology, which was intended to guarantee the best return for government investment, has perversely done more to widen economic disparities, depress productivity in poorer parts of Britain and deepen the gulf between north and south. We cannot continue to count every pound spent in terms of narrow cost-benefit. This Budget shows a welcome break from orthodoxy to ensure that funds are now allocated on the basis of how much they will improve well-being and social cohesion in the areas targeted.

The first indicator is the approach to spending on infrastructure. It seems that the Government are minded to go even further than the feted £100 billion. The Chancellor said that, by the end of this Parliament, public sector net investment would be triple the average over the last 40 years in real terms. This money must be spent on projects that have sustainability and productivity at their heart, so I am pleased that, as well as roads and railways, we have significant outlays for improving 4G networks such as the £5 billion for gigabit broadband. As the eyes of the world will be on the UK in Glasgow later this year, it is good to see the Government committing to building electric charging infrastructure. The commitment to carbon capture and storage technology will be vital if we are to meet our commitment to be net-zero on carbon emissions by 2050.

One former casualty of the outdated Treasury methodology is the Swansea tidal lagoon project. I have mentioned this many times; it has the potential to be the prototype for world-leading exportable technology. Could my noble friend the Minister commit to looking at this again? Our uniquely powerful tidal flow is an enormous competitive advantage that it would be a crime to ignore.

When it comes to investment, we cannot do better to boost our productivity than to invest in our people, so I commend the £2.5 billion new national skills fund. In this time of profound economic change, it is vital to support people as they upskill and reskill on their journeys to future-facing careers. Such a fund should give our high-growth, innovative firms access to a stronger pipeline of talent. I was disappointed—as were many others, including my noble friend Lord Leigh —to see a stringent reduction in the lifetime allowance for entrepreneurs’ relief. I declare an interest as the co-founder of a start-up company. We must mitigate the reputational damage this shift could do to our hard-won entrepreneurial culture. Access to talent, domestically and globally, will go some way to offsetting this, as it remains the No. 1 concern for start-up businesses.

This was a Budget about a crisis, but it was also about sowing the seeds of recovery. This pandemic has been a reminder that we are a truly global society, so we must build a workforce, infrastructure and ideas that can compete and succeed globally. On that measure, this Budget holds much promise.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I am a huge fan of pump-priming. If there is a credible business case, I think it is worth taking the matter back to the Treasury, so I agree with the noble Lord. I am conscious that I am running out of time.

[Baroness Finn]

My intervention is about the Green Book methodology. The very outdated methodology in the Treasury was mentioned by my noble friend in his opening speech, and I referred to it in mine. I am hoping that it will rebalance some of this.

Ministerial Code

Baroness Finn Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on securing this debate. However, while we are ostensibly here to debate potential changes to the Ministerial Code, I fear that we are not necessarily debating the right question. The Ministerial Code is already 31 pages long, the code for special advisers is 18. The Civil Service Code fits very neatly on one page on GOV.UK—I find this rather telling.

The real question is: what is holding the Civil Service back from delivering important and badly needed reforms on behalf of democratically elected Ministers and Governments? We have some of the finest civil servants in the world, and many of the best of them tell me just how much they want to see change. But individual excellence does not mean the institution itself is able to implement such reforms.

Government failures are, of course, not always the fault of the civil servants and there are myriad examples of failures caused by Ministers ignoring good advice. But, as Sir Christopher Meyer recently observed, accusations of bullying seem to have become commonplace when Ministers are demanding exacting standards, being direct or even disagreeing with the advice provided.

No sane Minister would want to go without at least receiving the best advice, even if they choose not to follow it. Civil servants should give robust advice and be resilient enough to make greater use of written directions, which enable them to air their concerns about a policy. But a Minister also has a right to expect accurate advice. A report into the row over the Windrush scandal, which led to the resignation of Amber Rudd as Home Secretary, found that Home Office officials had provided her with the wrong information and then failed to clear up the problem. The internal report, which demonstrated that civil servants had “not supported” her, was inexplicably delayed in its publication.

Some of those admonished for poor performance take shelter under an accusation of bullying—indeed, such accusations can even constitute a form of bullying themselves. As there is no legal definition of bullying, the whole area risks becoming entirely subjective. Being banned from a meeting or cut out of key copy list for correspondence was standard treatment when I was a special adviser in government. Would the treatment of Mr Weisel in “Yes, Minister” constitute bullying?

I therefore seek assurance from my noble friend the Minister that there is a fair process of fact finding when such accusations are made. The Civil Service should not be sitting as judge and jury over elected Ministers, and any concerns of alleged bullying must be assessed objectively and not subjectively. Robust challenge of officials by Ministers is not just something that the Civil Service should tolerate, it is critical to ensure good decision making and better policy formation —the other side of the coin called “speaking truth unto power”. We cannot have Ministers being afraid to criticise, in even the mildest form, for fear of reprisal.

Tony Blair, when reflecting on his own experience, remarked that:

“If you had a crisis, there is nothing better than that British system … But when it came to how do you do health service reform or education reform, or … the early battles I had on reforming asylum and immigration policy, I found it frankly just unresponsive.”


Civil servants are too often woefully unprepared for the huge operational burdens placed upon them, and there is an incomprehensible resistance to training them for such responsibilities. When my noble friend Lord Maude was Minister for the Cabinet Office, he proposed that senior civil servants headed for these very big responsibilities should be put through top management courses, typically three months, at top business schools. This is the routine practice of high-performing organisations. He proposed, and it was agreed, that 10 Permanent Secretaries should go through these courses before the 2015 election. And yet by the election, instead of 10 doing three months at Harvard, Stanford and INSEAD, one person had had done a week’s course at IMD in Lausanne—not quite what was intended, and it is difficult to understand the resistance to make a serious investment in such key people.

It is little wonder that Ministers get deeply frustrated when their departmental officials prove incapable of implementing their policies. After all, this is what democratically elected Governments are held to account on. If they fail, it should not be because there is too little capability in the Civil Service to implement or deliver.

It is this that should be the subject of today’s debate: a Civil Service that desperately needs to look again at its capabilities in leading important operational departments—rather than worrying about unnecessary changes to the Ministerial Code.

Public Procurement and the Civil Society Strategy

Baroness Finn Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by drawing attention to my entry in the register of interests and by congratulating my noble friend Lady McGregor-Smith on securing a debate on this important topic, on which she spoke with such authority. It is an honour to follow her and other esteemed colleagues. I pay particular tribute to my noble friend Lord Maude for his tireless devotion to procurement reform during the coalition Government.

Every year, the Government spend a staggering amount of taxpayers’ money—more than £44 billion—buying goods and services. While our priority must always be to get the very best value for money, in both quality and price, it is important to look at the social value of these contracts too; otherwise, we risk missing half the picture. The coalition Government’s Public Services (Social Value) Act was all about ensuring that the Government use their buying power to effect lasting social good. That is the other side of my noble friend Lord Maude’s procurement reforms, which were about opening up the public procurement market to SMEs and new digital providers, growing the supplier market by encouraging more mutuals and co-operatives, and improving commercial skills within government. Despite much progress, this remains unfinished business.

For too long, we have been operating under the false assumption that only government can create social value. Businesses pursue profit and generate externalities that either the Government have to mitigate with tax and regulation, or the company itself effectively apologises for with a corporate and social responsibility programme, but businesses can and should have social value at their core—not as an afterthought but in their DNA and not as an offset but through day-to-day activity. Businesses that get ahead of the curve in their social and environmental responsibilities tend also to be the most successful in building long-term shareholder value. The Government can do more than tax and spend to create social value: they can enable businesses to do it themselves and hold them to account for doing so.

In 2013, the Government implemented the social value Act. By 2017, around £25 billion of annual public sector procurement spend was shaped by that Act. That is a significant achievement but still represents less than 10% of the total public sector outlay. The truth is that, since the Act was passed, insufficient progress has been made. Businesses are enabled but not yet accountable. We need better to hold businesses to account on social value and continue to drive improvement in contract management and procurement in government, where skills and capacity remain lacking. Crucially, my noble friend Lord Young’s 2015 review of the Act concluded that there is a lack of consideration of social value as part of procurement. In fact, social value for both buyer and seller was positioned as an afterthought, not as part of the procurement itself. This will always reduce the potential to create genuine and lasting social value.

The Government can enable but businesses, especially large ones, must take more responsibility and procurement teams must hold them to account. We have been talking about late payments to SMEs for too long, yet the problem is still endemic. We now have 30-day payment terms right down the supply chain, but are they being honoured? We can mandate the inclusion of SMEs and break up large contracts into smaller ones, but if SMEs are not paid on time, they will likely be dissuaded from bidding in the first place. Large companies, which often win large contracts on price, might well agree to tack on some apprentices or BAME targets, but unless they have fully considered the cost and training at the outset to enable the full benefit of those they take on, an opportunity is missed.

How can we go further and improve the Act’s effectiveness? We need to move beyond social value as a mere consideration for buyers. I therefore applaud the Cabinet Office Minister, the right honourable Member for Aylesbury, whose amendment assigns a strong 10% of public procurement buying power to social value. More needs to be done. We need to engage earlier in the buying process, at a more fundamental and strategic level. Social value needs to be part of pre-market engagement wherein buyers engage with the entire supply chain.

Following this, social value needs to be written into the tender. If contracts were awarded with social value properly weighted, it would be priced into the contract itself and the chance of delivery would be maximised. When apprentices are taken on, they must be given meaningful work with the strongest focus on real training and supervision. If they are recruited as an afterthought, as a retrofit to a contract, it is unlikely that genuine social value will be created.

There remains an overall lack of transparency about how companies will act, when they will pay and where they will embed social value in delivery, but good practice is out there. In 2012, London Underground launched its station stabilisation programme using its Stake delivery model, which was designed to create greater efficiency by engaging directly with SMEs to employ the craftspeople to work on-site. Craft academies were established to provide skills training and front-line leadership for those delivering the programme. The benefits of the approach were that those who undertook the work were those who planned it. The early involvement developed clear accountabilities, increased planning and programme ownership, and gave a long-term commitment to suppliers, thus ensuring competent and capable resources. The Stake programme was designed in collaboration with Infrastructure UK and takes its origins from a 2011 keynote speech by the then Cabinet Office Minister, now my noble friend Lord Maude, who said:

“We are looking for more innovative ways to structure services. We know that employees who have a stake in their business, or take ownership of it completely, have much more power and motivation to improve the service they run”.


He eloquently made that case again today.

Cross-cutting all of this, however, means improving the commercial capability of public sector buyers. We need to combine value for money training with social value training so that the one is not seen as being in conflict with the other. Only if we improve the commercial skills in Whitehall will it be able to cut through this lack of transparency and hold businesses to account, as well as driving value for money for the taxpayer. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, found in his review, evaluation criteria are vital to align social value with value for money and offer greater clarity to providers on how it would like to see it measured.

We have long discussed how to improve procurement to bring in more SMEs, get value for money and drive efficiencies across government, but now we are talking about something far more profound: the scope for government not to punish business for doing harm, but to enable it to create social value. That is surely the ultimate public-private partnership and one we should aim to improve by properly implementing not only the letter but the spirit of the Public Services (Social Value) Act.