Global Economy

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Baroness O'Cathain

Thursday 11th August 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, the Minister and the Chancellor have prayed in aid of their argument the credit rating agencies. Is it not strange that these credit rating agencies, which downgraded the economy of the United States of America, are private companies—private sector institutions such as Standard and Poor, Fitch, Moody and all the other credit rating agencies. Does the Minister not agree that they have, by their actions, exacerbated the economic crisis and that, as a result, some of their friends and interests have benefited? Would it not be better if our Government and those of other countries, particularly members of the European Union, were to get together and look at ways in which credit rating can be done on a public sector basis in the public interest, and not on a private sector basis in the private interest?

[Baroness O'Cathain]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for repeating the Chancellor’s Statement. I have a copy of it here. One of the things that stands out is:

“We need an international framework that allows creditor countries like China to increase demand and debtor countries to make the difficult adjustments necessary to repay them”.

I should like to ask: what are the chances of this happening? What is the mechanism? Is it the autumn meeting of the IMF and the G20? I come back to my point about what the chances are. There is no question that if we could stimulate China to increase its demand for products from our country and Europe, we would be well on the way to restoring the confidence of our small and medium-sized enterprises to get more involved in that market. Leading directly on from that, my noble friend said that more supporting measures will be produced in the autumn. Can I make a plea on behalf of small and medium-sized enterprises for something to be done to limit the huge burden of regulation, which disproportionately falls on small and medium-sized enterprises? They wish to carry on but find international trade really difficult.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Baroness O'Cathain

Tuesday 5th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I have just been put on the Select Committee, so I shall leave that to members such as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, my noble friends Lord Tomlinson and Lord Richard, and other noble Lords who have been on the Select Committee for many years and know it better than me. I am just beginning to get to know it, but I am sure they can give examples.

[Baroness O'Cathain]

I remind the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, about mobile phone roaming fees, on which we did an enormous amount. Not only are people in this country glad for the work that we did that led to the changes; so are people in other member states.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I am grateful to my noble friend—I think I can call her that in relation to that contribution, just on this occasion.

I want to finish by following the point made by my noble friend Lord Tomlinson and asking the Minister to give us a few examples of the kind of things that would be dealt with. I suspect that we will not get many examples or, if we do get any, they will not be very convincing. The Government are reluctant to give us examples because, by giving them, ridicule would be poured on the Government because they are either so irrelevant or so minor.