Office for Demographic Change Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bassam of Brighton and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts

2nd reading
Friday 4th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all those who have participated in this debate. I absolutely recognise that this is a very delicate and difficult subject in which almost anything one says is capable of being misinterpreted, and frequently is. Therefore, I do not so much want people to agree with me—although I would like them to—as for this to become a respectable matter to discuss, which it has not been. Out there, a lot of people feel they cannot talk about it because they will be attacked for that.

Briefly, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon, who talked about the disjointed approach to this whole policy. He said that I had drawn the ODC too tightly, but my noble friend on the Front Bench said I had drawn it too broadly, so I think I am pretty much in the right place, in that case. I thank my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe for her support. She asked about costs. The MAC costs £900,000 a year—that is the MAC’s budget. I think the MAC should be subsumed into this body, so when my noble friend the Minister says we are going to create a new body, we are not, we are going to get rid of one. I know that “one in, one out” is part of the Government’s policy, therefore I think that probably 1.5 million to 2 million quid would cover the enlarged body. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, with her knowledge about the impact of demographic change on older people, and my noble friend the Earl of Shrewsbury with his knowledge about reskilling and the impact of new arrivals on that.

The noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, has faced, and put up, uncomfortable truths for many years. From time to time, I have been ashamed by how he has been treated by the House. Every Member of your Lordships’ House is entitled to be treated with respect. His style may be a trifle uncompromising sometimes—I accept that. Nevertheless, his facts and figures are accurate, even if some noble Lords find uncomfortable some of the conclusions which may have to be drawn from them.

I thank my noble friend Lord Horam for his comments on long-term thinking going wider than just the economy and being crowded. I think the only state in the US which is as crowded as the UK is New Jersey.

The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and I have had common cause on many occasions in the past—and no doubt will again in the future. He is, as one would say at the pub, “a decent bloke”. However, I must say that this was a very, very sorry performance. Overcrowded Islands? had a question mark after it. What is wrong with the current data? What is wrong with the Migration Advisory Committee? We have heard several noble Lords talk about this. I will not detain the House by discussing how we would deal with the situation in Ukraine, but I could.

I say to the noble Lord that he is faced with a problem—namely, he is talking to two audiences. The first is the elite in the big cities and university towns. They regard this subject as insufferably vulgar, prejudiced and populist. The latter is the insult of the chattering classes. They believe that it will be all right on the night and that, if we stop talking about it everything will be fine. The rest of the country, however—if you go back to my old seat in Walsall North, the West Midlands, or elsewhere—is a completely different world. Do they think that there is an issue here? You bet they do. I must say to the noble Lord that, before we get to the next election, the Labour Party must decide where this fits. The red wall seats ain’t going to come back if what the noble Lord has espoused today is the Labour Party’s policy at the next election. This was one of the major reasons for them coming to us in the first place.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

To correct the noble Lord, I say briefly that my party and I recognise the importance of these issues, but this is not the right way to set about having that debate. That is the difference between the noble Lord and me.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

I am very happy to accept that rejoinder.

I say to the Minister: am I surprised? No. Am I disappointed? Yes. Are the ONS and MAC providing enough? We know that they are not; they are not joining up the dots. He had to read out the cost to the taxpayer of from £1.5 million to £2 million. Frankly, demographic change is an important part of any levelling-up policy—the flagship policy of this Government. What demography does will have an impact on our ability to deliver this. After giving a challenge to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, I give one to my noble friend. We lost the Chesham and Amersham by-election because of building in the green belt. Now, we are proposing to build all across the green belts in our shire counties in the south-east of England and in other parts of the country. It is intensely unpopular and, unless we show people that we are doing something about it, we shall rue the day. I had hoped that when my noble friend came to the Dispatch Box that we would get the noble Lord, Lord Botham. In fact, we got Geoffrey Boycott.

I will end with two very brief quotations. The first is from David Aaronovitch, a writer from the Times I often quote, who said:

“I have a regular correspondent—let us call him Igor—who writes to me from Offa’s Dyke … Running through Igor’s protestations is a sense of bewilderment. And in this he captures what I now feel. What many of us are feeling and expressing. How could they? Why would they? Why didn’t we know? What is it about them that we just don’t get?”


Secondly, Octavia Hill, co-founder of the National Trust, wrote:

“We all want quiet. We all want beauty ... We all need space. Unless we have it, we cannot reach that sense of quiet in which whispers of better things come to us gently.”


The underlying purpose of the ODC is to provide for Igor, and millions like him all across the country,

“that sense of quiet which whispers of betting things will come to him gently.”

I commend the Bill to the House.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.