Plan for Change: Milestones for Mission-led Government

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

First, on the nutrients neutrality issue, the noble Lord will be aware that the previous Government’s proposal was to override environmental concerns. We were very concerned that there should be mitigations in that legislation to ensure that it did not just override environmental concerns but took those into account. I have listened to some of the discussions on the environment and housing, and the two should go hand in hand: we should be looking to create good-quality housing and a good environment at the same time. I have looked at some of the proposals. The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and I both come from new towns, and there are some great examples and some poor ones. Where you have green lungs in new towns, green gyms surrounding housing and nature areas within developments, those are really important. Our commitment is both to the environment and to increasing housing.

On immigration, I can understand the noble Lord’s embarrassment about the last Government’s record. I think we were all shocked when we saw how much the figures had gone up and how inaccurate the previous Government’s figures were. It is fundamental to our polices that economic growth, secure borders and the security of the nation go hand in hand. Some £700 million was spent on a bound-to-fail, flawed Rwanda immigration policy, and we can all think of ways that could have been much better spent—actually processing asylum claims and securing our borders. The Prime Minister has undertaken work, building up relationships with other countries and looking for agreements with them. Some people leave their country and seek refuge, asylum and a better quality of life here because they are fleeing war or poverty, for example. We should be working internationally to address those issues and not just spending a lot of money on flawed policies.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I was glad to hear the Leader of the House talk about the use of external expertise in moving forward these milestones and missions. As somebody who came from business and has worked within government, I think different perspectives are very helpful. That is particularly important with very difficult challenges on things such as skills, especially in construction and planning. It is obviously vital that we progress that fast, so I welcome the efforts that have been made. I just wanted to pick up something my noble friend Lady Finn asked, which was about how the mission boards would work, who would be attending, who would be involved and how that fitted in with Cabinet committees and so on.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I do not have an organogram in front of me, so that is detail I probably cannot supply. But the purpose of the mission boards is to follow the missions we have in government. This is a way of having cross-governmental working, bringing key people together. If the Prime Minister is not available, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is. On that cross-government working, Cabinet committees work, in some ways, and some may still do so, but we felt that the mission boards better reflected the missions we have outlined and made a commitment on.