Inclusive Society

Debate between Baroness Watkins of Tavistock and Lord Razzall

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Razzall (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, rightly wants to build an inclusive society in the post-pandemic world. The Raoul Wallenberg Institute defines the inclusive society as

“empowering and promoting the social, economic, and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion, economic, or other status.”

Noble Lords will know that this reads very like the preamble to the Liberal Democrat constitution, and it touches on the principle of community politics so dear to many of us. Noble Lords have concentrated on different aspects of inclusion—or our current lack of it—from housing to poverty to children’s problems, to name a few. I have three suggestions which will change our lives, increasing inclusiveness, if the Government have the courage to implement them.

First, as the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, said, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, implied, we should take power away from Whitehall and transfer it to our communities. When I was first elected to Richmond Council in 1974, 75% of revenue was raised locally and only 25% came from central government. This is now reversed, with inevitable Treasury control over spending and much central funding to local government being ring-fenced. Do we really believe that this trend has meant better government and more inclusivity?

Secondly, if we want to provide proper inclusiveness for the elderly, who, after all, ought to benefit from what we want to achieve, surely we must now have a solution to social care. The Dilnot report was over 10 years ago. The coalition Government legislated before 2015, but those proposals were scrapped when the Tories had an overall majority. Boris Johnson said he had a plan for social care in 2019. Where is it?

Thirdly, nobody has touched on the problems faced by small and medium-sized enterprises in our economy, which are so much the lifeblood of our communities. Destroy SMEs and you destroy the inclusiveness of many of our communities, and Brexit is doing that. The Government say that there will be short-term teething problems in the trade that so many SMEs are trying to do with the European Union. Tell that to the SME selling second-hand combine harvesters, which has to pay inspectors to produce complex certificates for the machines, causing significant costs and delay. Tell that to the SME bike manufacturer struggling to cope with different VAT regimes across 27 countries. Tell that to the Scotch whisky producers; labelling requirements often require small companies to set up a distribution company in Europe, significantly reducing profit. Tell that to the Nottingham company making synthetic hairpieces for cancer patients whose essential just-in-time supply chain in Germany has now collapsed.

These examples are not indicative of teething problems; they are examples of real damage that Brexit has done to many small and medium-sized enterprises without any apparent economic advantage, and of the serious damage done to the inclusiveness of our society in so many of our communities.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Watkins of Tavistock) (CB)]

The noble Lord, Lord Desai, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Pendry.