Declining Birth Rates
Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My thanks, too, to my noble friend for opening this debate.
My Lords, it seems ironic that some of the very same politicians who framed the falling birth rate as a crisis have also pledged to bring back the two-child benefit cap. Meanwhile, the far right peddles racist conspiracy theories about white European populations being replaced and proclaims that having babies is a woman’s patriotic duty.
In contrast, my starting point is women’s choice. Most of us do not want a Handmaid’s Tale-style future, with the state pressurising women into motherhood. Instead, we should celebrate how better education and access to contraception and abortion services has helped women take more control over reproductive choices. In a free society, it is not for government to dictate whether we have children or how many. But government policies can either support citizens’ choices or push them beyond reach. Ordinary people have suffered years of austerity and pressure on wages, and they were told that they had no right to expect job security, let alone a secure home.
I pay tribute to this Government’s Employment Rights Act and Renters’ Rights Act, which guarantee a more stable life, including for those who want to start a family. Policies that recognise that families come in all shapes and sizes are important too. A quarter of families are headed by a single parent, who are overwhelmingly mothers—I was one of them—so action on equal pay and childcare really counts.
The paid parental leave system, which this Government have inherited, is among the worst in Europe. That makes it harder for new mothers to stay in the workforce, or relegates them to second-class status, holding back economic growth. New fathers and other parents get a raw deal too. While many employers top up statutory paternity pay, blue-collar workers are much more likely to rely on the statutory rate, and self-employed dads get nothing at all. The UK’s parental leave system is still rooted in the 1950s idea of the sole male breadwinner and emotionally detached fatherhood—a model of masculinity that only the so-called populist right still aspires to. All the evidence is that women and men want to share parenthood more equally, and giving new babies more time with their parents is one of the best forms of early years investment. Change is urgent.
Similarly, living longer lives should be seen as a measure of human progress. It becomes a crisis only if we fail to put in place policies necessary to support a happy old age, not least tackling the UK’s stark class inequality in healthy life expectancy. The last thing we need is divisive proposals that stoke intergenerational wars. That brings me to the recent report from the Centre for Social Justice, Baby Bust. It argues that “too many retirees” believe that
“they have ‘paid for’ their pension rather than understanding that it is funded by current taxpayers”.
The centre could have usefully added that this generation of taxpayers has an interest in protecting a decent state pension, because one day they will claim it too. The state pension is, in fact, a prime example of intergenerational solidarity.
Reading the report, you might also think that the UK’s state pension provision is generous. It is not. UK spending on state pensions as a percentage of GDP is well below the OECD average. Of course, we must prioritise economic growth to support an ageing society. Many argue that technology is the answer, and it has been calculated that the introduction of AI alone will deliver multibillion-dollar productivity gains. I would welcome the Minister’s views on ways to ensure that those gains are shared fairly, and on how big tech can pay its fair share towards the decent public goods and services that our ageing population has earned.
King’s Speech
Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Redwood, and to perhaps offer a slightly different perspective. I declare my interest as a member of the Great British Energy start-up board and my responsibilities around a just transition.
We live in times of global economic shocks, from the financial crash to Brexit, Covid and conflict in the Middle East, and there is no guarantee that the global picture will get any easier. On the contrary, such shocks could speed up and intensify, which makes it ever more important that we build our economic resilience. At times like this, it is even more important that the UK has an industrial policy that is both agile and long term. To succeed, it must certainly last longer than the life of a couple of Parliaments, and that means that we need a broad national consensus to sustain it.
This Government’s industrial strategy has won support across traditional lines, and that is reflected in the make-up of the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council. There is broad agreement that a long-running problem for the UK has been low investment in technology, capital equipment and skills, which leads to low productivity, and that this challenge must be met by not just the Treasury but the whole of the Government, at the local as well as the national level. There is widespread consensus too that the Government have made the right call in identifying eight strategic sectors, with the right balance between industry and the services sector.
Economic security and stability matter for families and communities as well as for the country. It should therefore be self-evident that a key objective of the industrial strategy must be to cut carbon and reduce energy costs and to deliver prosperity and good, skilled jobs in the parts of the country that need them most. We have to recognise that there is a growing public expectation on the state to step up and protect people against the volatilities and failures of the free market and to tackle structural inequalities. A mission for growth becomes meaningful in everyday life when it also delivers rising living standards and fair shares. Polls show that public support for a modern, mixed economy is strong. To put this plainly, I merely observe that the privatisation of Royal Mail, British Rail and the utilities is now seen as an almighty rip-off. I commend the Government for taking back public control of rail and of steel, which is a core foundation industry that is critical for the security of this country and indeed Europe. I am sure I do not need to remind noble Lords that polling shows strong popular appetite for more public ownership, not least of the water industry.
We need the private sector to play its part in delivering fair growth for the British people. According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, share ownership in Britain is dominated by overseas investors. It has now reached a record high of nearly 58% of UK quoted shares and, on average, shares change hands in a matter of months. That is why I believe that an intelligent industrial strategy must address the case for corporate governance reform, to encourage directors to focus on company long-term success and to ensure that the workers’ voice is included.
While there is growing consensus in favour of an active industrial policy here in the UK, others are not standing still; they are moving ahead too. I end by asking my noble friend the Minister about proposals for EU alignment and the EU’s draft Industrial Accelerator Act, published in March, which was touched on briefly by the noble Lord, Lord Fox. The draft Act sets a clear goal to bring EU manufacturing back up to 20% of GDP by 2035. It is said that this will be delivered by introducing “made in EU” and low-carbon preferences in public procurement. It will regulate foreign direct investment in emerging strategic sectors, streamline and digitise permission for new industrial projects, and launch acceleration areas to encourage the creation of clean manufacturing clusters. I have some questions. If the Minister understandably cannot provide answers now, I would be happy to receive them in the form of a letter. What is the Government’s assessment of the impact of this EU Act on the UK? Is it on the agenda for the reset and dynamic alignment discussions with the EU? Will the Government agree to open a public conversation, including with British-based manufacturers, alongside the TUC and unions, on how we can match the Act’s ambition here in the UK?