Economy: GDP Forecast

Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland Excerpts

Monday 29th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

I do, my Lords, but with interest rates you cannot have it both ways. You cannot have low interest rates for people who want to borrow and high interest rates for those who want to save. On balance, the Government’s view is that having had interest rates low has kept families being able to spend, compared with having higher interest rates. For example, a 1% increase in mortgage rates would have added £12 billion per year to interest payments. It would have sucked that out of the economy. If you have that kind of reduction in expenditure and the kind of diminution of growth which it entails it harms everybody, even those who are savers.

[Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland]

My Lords, we all welcome the improved rate of growth, but is it not true that this Government have not yet achieved the rate of growth that they inherited?

[Lord Newby]

We certainly have not seen the rate of growth that we or, indeed, anybody envisaged in 2010, but as the Office for Budget Responsibility has made absolutely clear in a succession of reports, the single greatest check on growth has been the ongoing eurozone crisis because that is where we sell most of our goods.

Taxation: Avoidance

Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland Excerpts

Wednesday 25th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strasburger]

My Lords—

[Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

This side!

FSA Investigation into LIBOR

Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, during earlier parts of today, I have criticised the former Government’s behaviour and policies on certain matters. I have commended certain things that they had done. In this case, I stand by the words of my right honourable friend the Chancellor.

[Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland]

Does the Minister agree that the apparently noble gesture of the directors of Barclays in waiving their bonuses this year is not good enough? I will be pretentious and say that we, the people, demand that they pay back every bit of the bonuses for the years in question.

While we are talking about this, I cannot remember—because I have been in this place for so long—whether the process of deregulation was begun by the Minister’s Government. It was the noble Baroness herself who elevated greed to a virtue. Then the whole international financial consensus pleaded with us all for soft-touch regulation. That is what they got. We were wrong, but they were wrong for exploiting it. They, and not the two Governments who have been involved, are culpable.

EU: Euro Area Crisis

Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

I certainly agree with my noble friend that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister played a very constructive role in the discussions last night and is clearly open to a range of ideas.

[Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland]

My Lords—

[Lord Barnett]

My Lords, would it not be in the UK’s best interests to recognise the major differences that exist? If we are to help in any way to avoid a messy break-up of the eurozone, would it not be in our best interests to help set up some kind of scheme that would bring about the usual kind of compromise that would help at least in the short term? The noble Lord said recently that the Prime Minister was right and might agree to some kind of support for a growth fund. Does that option still exist?

Ireland: Financial Assistance

Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

That is precisely what I am saying. As was confirmed by my right honourable friend the Chancellor in another place, the Government are not going to take this country into the eurozone and, indeed, we are not going to make any preparations during the course of this Parliament to take us into the eurozone. I think that it is completely compatible with playing our part as an important part of the European economy to make sure that the eurozone is stable. I may be being thick, but I fail to see the contradiction in those two positions.

[Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland]

My Lords, the Government have done the right thing, and we support them, but now that they have become enthusiastic supporters of growth being a fundamental part of the solution in Ireland and in Europe as a whole, will they give a great deal more thought to how they can stimulate growth in the United Kingdom, as the new secretary of the CBI requested?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, we have been giving it very considerable attention, which is precisely why the first series of actions of this Government was around convincing the world that we had a plan to deal with our deficit so that we did not find ourselves remotely in the position in which Ireland has regrettably found itself. That is the way that we have managed to keep interest rates low and the foundation of our growth policies. We have then gone on, whether in tax, capital expenditure through the spending review, the economic infrastructure, the attack on regulation or in other areas, to build a strong series of growth policies in this country.