Queen’s Speech

Baroness Ford Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ford (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, although one could always wish for more, it would be churlish not to acknowledge the important steps forward contained in the gracious Speech on vital infrastructure for our country. I will focus on this today, and on transport, including the regime to enable spaceports to be developed in the United Kingdom. Before I do, I declare my interests on the register relating to housing and commercial property, and as chairman of Scottish Television, with a natural interest in developing satellite technology.

The statutory footing proposed for the National Infrastructure Commission is a very welcome step in the right direction. Together with the recently updated national infrastructure plan, it provides a clear signal to investors of the Government’s commitment and priorities. However, we will wait with interest to understand the statutory remit of the commission and the scope of its powers. These will determine whether it has real teeth and can meaningfully move forward the whole programme of infrastructure delivery that is so badly needed to enable our country to improve competitiveness and, crucially, productivity, which currently lags so badly behind all our major competitors.

However, I greatly regret the Government’s abolition of the Infrastructure Planning Commission, the creation of which was one of the first acts of the coalition Government in 2010. Had this body been allowed to develop as planned, we would now have at our disposal all the tools to accelerate infrastructure development in the UK. I ask the Minister: are there any plans to resurrect the idea of a national planning body for major pieces of crucial infrastructure? This would sit well alongside the new National Infrastructure Commission and the national plan.

As we return to considering HS2 in this House in the forthcoming Session, I echo the sentiments expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, at Second Reading. This is a huge undertaking and yet quite literally it does not go far enough. To realise the full economic benefits to the UK as a whole, the project needs to continue in due course to Scotland. The west and east coast main lines have become increasingly busy over the past 20 years. If we are serious about economic competitiveness, about running more passenger services between Scotland and England, and about cutting emissions levels, more capacity is required. HS2 could certainly help address this. Creating an additional electrified route to Scotland would also improve network resilience—something that the flood damage to Lamington Viaduct brought to everyone’s attention earlier this year. Can the Minister say what progress has been made on the question of an extension to the project since the joint announcement between the UK and Scottish Governments on 16 March this year?

I turn to the modern transport Bill, in particular the very welcome announcement that a licensing regime is to be created, rather than a competition among locations, for the development of spaceports. The space industry is growing at just over 8% per annum but its development is constrained by a lack of low-cost and reliable access to space. Launches are very expensive, have to be booked years in advance and are repeatedly delayed or rescheduled. UK and European businesses looking to undertake space launches currently have to look to Kazakhstan, the US or French Guiana. A UK spaceport, or spaceports, with reliable launch vehicles operating from them would reduce the cost of launch substantially and increase the certainty of launch dates. This would both result in increased demand for satellites for a range of applications and allow launches into non-equatorial orbit from the UK. This opens up tremendous economic development possibilities for all downstream activities that are reliant on satellite technology.

The proposed new regime is exceptionally good news for locations such as Prestwick international airport, to which I have a strong local attachment and where I have seen tremendous work being done in the past few years in preparation for its next phase of development as a spaceport. It is quite simply the perfect location for such a facility—geographically, technically and commercially. With almost a hundred years of experience in the aerospace sector, the airport offers a ready-made cluster on site. There are already thousands of highly skilled people working on testing, modifying, repairing and maintaining aircraft. These are the highly skilled jobs that will readily adapt to the demands of the spaceplanes. It is a very exciting and natural next chapter in the airport’s development, and will be a fabulous platform for growing the regional economy in Ayrshire.

The proposed licensing regime will enable the investment community, already excited by what is on offer at Prestwick and other locations, to select the best location for development, rather than being directed to a predetermined site chosen by government. We can look forward to the Bill coming forward to enable this hugely important industry to flourish and to flourish safely. There are currently no commercial spaceports in the UK, and this legislation will pave the way for Prestwick and any other suitable locations to develop a very important 21st-century industry.

National Infrastructure Plan

Baroness Ford Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deighton]

With the first part of his question, as always, my noble friend forensically brings us to the detail. It is quite true that the Opposition’s plans for capital expenditure were lower than this Government’s. Subsequently, we switched current spend into capital spend in the Autumn Statements in 2011 and 2012, which further exacerbated this side’s advantage on investment. On my noble friend’s observation about offshore wind strike prices, the purpose of today’s announcement was to give the industry certainty in order to be able to get on with the building that we need, not only in nuclear but in wind and, over time, with the capacity mechanism, in gas. There are of course a variety of views about the speed at which we should decarbonise and the value of that, but the current status reflects our view on getting a diversified supply of energy.

[Baroness Ford (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the Statement hints at changes to judicial review. As the Minister well knows, delivering infrastructure requires not just a plan —which we are pleased to hear about even though we, as a Government, plainly had a plan, whether he recognises that or not—but access to requisite finance and, critically, planning consent. The Government in their supposed wisdom decided not to go through with the infrastructure planning commission, which would have been a huge asset in delivering speedy planning consents for major infrastructure projects. Can the Minister say whether the changes to judicial review will accomplish exactly the same end?

[Lord Deighton]

I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention and for bringing her experience to bear on this. The whole idea of the judicial review changes is to make sure that, on all matters relating to national infrastructure, we get through the process more quickly, where it is appropriate, and fast-track them. That is consistent with what she is discussing.

Banking: National Savings & Investments

Baroness Ford Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Ford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether there are any plans to extend or improve the range of retail savings products offered by National Savings & Investments.

[Baroness Ford]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare an interest as a customer of National Savings.

[The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)]

My Lords, National Savings & Investments reviews its product range on a regular basis in light of its role to provide cost-effective retail debt finance to government. In doing so, it follows a policy of balancing the interests of its savers, the taxpayer and the wider stability of the financial services market.

[Baroness Ford]

I thank the Minister for that—albeit disappointing—reply. National Savings is probably one of the most trusted financial services brands left in the United Kingdom. The Minister knows well that all its recent issues have been massively and very quickly oversubscribed. Are the Government not missing a huge opportunity to extend the reach of National Savings to help savers and pensioners whose incomes have been absolutely hammered in the past five years due to the combination of record low interest rates and the disastrous effects of quantitative easing on annuity levels?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, the Government are very well aware of the needs of savers. Those who have done the right thing in the good times should not be penalised in these difficult times and the Government understand that. Specifically on National Savings & Investments, as I said, it keeps its product range under regular review so, of course, it looks to see when it is appropriate to bring products back in. However, it has to balance the need to deliver finance to the Government at rates that represent value for money for the taxpayer and the need not to compete unfairly in the savings market by offering products that compete with other providers in the market. The noble Baroness may look askance at that but I assure her that I get constant complaints from the retail savings market if it thinks that NS&I is using its power unfairly in the market.

Independent Commission on Banking

Baroness Ford Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

I am certainly no lawyer, so whether there was legal theft I will leave to lawyers to sort out. On the question of moral theft, I look to the Bishops’ Benches for guidance. The noble Lord makes the serious point that these events were deeply shocking and needed the sort of serious response that the Government and the commission have given. That is why we will drive through the recommendations that we accepted in principle today.

[Baroness Ford]

My Lords, I have a slight disagreement with the noble Lord, Lord Higgins. I particularly welcome the flexibility around the ring-fence, which is a very intelligent response to the dilemma of separation that clearly reflects the reality of modern Treasury management. That is greatly to be welcomed. However, given that a huge component of the problems that we have experienced concerns the misallocation and mispricing of risk, and the failure of regulation, will the Minister say whether, in line with the changes that the commission set out today and that Basel III will introduce, the Government have any proposals for further strengthening the regulatory framework in this country? Banking systems in other countries such as Canada did not fail. I declare an interest: I worked for a Canadian bank in that period. One of the distinguishing features of the Canadian system was the strength of regulation. Are there any plans for further strengthening the regulatory framework in this country?

[Lord Sassoon]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for pointing out the good sense with which the commission addressed the question of the ring-fence. Clearly it has thought about the arguments that have been put over recent months. In respect of the failure of regulation, on which I completely agree with her, the overhaul of the regulatory structure, which is coming forward in the financial services Bill, is very significant. It puts the primary responsibility for looking at the risk in the entire system where it ought to be: that is, with the central bank. That is a fundamental change. The new Financial Policy Committee of the Bank of England is up in effective shadow mode, ahead of the legislation going through. It is able to address—and is addressing—risk issues as we speak, and I am sure that it will take note of whether there is anything further in the report that it ought to pick up on.