Infrastructure: Expenditure

Lord Hollick Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Hollick]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much has been spent on infrastructure projects in the current financial year, and how that figure compares with that in the previous financial year.

[The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Deighton)]

My Lords, we are spending more on infrastructure projects this year. Capital spending by the departments responsible for economic infrastructure—DfT, DECC and Defra—is increasing. The transport budget, for example, rises from £7.7 billion last year to £8 billion this year, then £8.7 billion next year and £8.9 billion in 2014-15, which is more than at any point under the last Government. This has been possible because the Government increased infrastructure spending by £10 billion over the past two Autumn Statements, increases which the Budget committed to making permanent, with a further £3 billion a year from 2015-16.

[Lord Hollick]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. However, the Office for Budget Responsibility reported a rather different situation last week, when it announced that public sector net investment would fall by 34%, from £38.7 billion in 2010-11 to an estimated £25.5 billion in the current year, 2012-13. The OBR also forecast that, taking into account all the measures so far announced, including those announced in the Budget last week, there would be zero growth in infrastructure spend between now and 2017-18. Will the Minister please explain why these measures have failed, and continue to fail, to boost overall infrastructure investment, and which additional measures he plans to introduce to improve the dire forecast for the next five years?

[Lord Deighton]

My Lords, first, it is necessary to clear up the numbers. There is a significant difference between public investment numbers and investment in infrastructure. Public investment includes huge investments in health and in defence, so there is a significant difference there. Also, if you look at the national infrastructure plan, you see that approximately 80% of the investment that we expect over the next 15 years in fact comes from the private markets and not from public capital expenditure.

Economy: Growth

Lord Hollick Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hollick]

My Lords, I, too, would like to congratulate the Minister on his leading role in a brilliantly successful Olympic and Paralympic Games last summer. He is the living embodiment of the vital role the Government can play to promote growth in the short term and, thanks to the legacy infrastructure, in the long term too. His appointment provides welcome substance to the Government’s claim to wish to boost infrastructure investment but will the Government provide the means to do it? He and his partners at the ODA received £9.3 billion from the previous Government, a level of support that was maintained by the coalition. We must hope that he will be successful in persuading his new boss that the entire economy is badly in need of this kind of commitment to invest in infrastructure.

As we have heard from other noble Lords, the UK economy is profoundly stuck. Real GDP is more than 3% below the 2008 figure and a significant 15% below where it would have been if long-term growth trends had been maintained. This sustained underperformance can be expected to impact adversely on the underlying production capacity of the economy and our skill base. The corrosive effect on the social fabric is high and under-investment in education, housing and public services is all too evident. Unemployment is up from 5.2% to 7.8% despite the recent downward trend and more than 900,000 young people are unemployed with a similar number of the total workforce out of work for more than 12 months. Yet the Chancellor’s response to this grim state of affairs was to say in his Autumn Statement that,

“turning back now would be a disaster”.

Turning back from his failed and indeed nonsensical policy of “expansionary fiscal contraction” would have been a wise choice. Expansionary fiscal contraction works as an oxymoron but not as an economic policy. The belief that cutting the fiscal deficit would boost business and consumer confidence and lead to economic growth and that private sector investment would fill the gap left by the coalition’s austerity plan was and remains profoundly flawed. In 2010, the OBR predicted that business investment would grow in real terms by 8.1% in 2011 followed by average annual growth of 9.5% in the following four years. In reality, it grew by 2.9% in 2011, 3.8% in 2012 and is forecast to grow by 4.9% in 2013. Many of our larger companies hold high levels of cash on their balance sheets but uncertainty about the outlook for demand—a word that was curiously missing from the Minister’s remarks—is proving to be a deterrent to investment. This flawed approach was in part sustained by a naive belief in the sanctity of the UK’s credit rating as measured by discredited rating agencies. Markets are sophisticated enough to realise that without growth the deficit will continue to balloon leading to further austerity and further weakness in the economy—a spiral of doom. As Larry Summers has pointed out, we are facing not just a fiscal deficit, but also growth, jobs, investment and skills deficits.

If the Chancellor is to address these deficits, he must first address the UK’s dramatic lack of aggregate demand. This is not just the view of his opposite number, my honourable friend Ed Balls, whose analysis has, most gallingly for the Chancellor, proved to be all too correct, but is also the view of the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and many other major economic institutions which have all warned that austerity was hurting growth and have urged economies—not just the UK—to embrace stimulus.

The Chancellor is, of course, a realist. He knows that he must alter course and boost growth. Over the past year, he has introduced a number of supply-side measures, many good, some less so, but taken together they are unlikely to have much impact in the near term. The Funding for Lending scheme is to be applauded. The 89 steps of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, to leave No Stone Unturned in pursuit of growth are most welcome and were warmly embraced by the Government. However, his principal recommendation to gather together all business funding in Whitehall and pass it to the regions appears, unsurprisingly, to have encountered some resistance at the centre. All these supply-side measures provide evidence of a quickening pace but no real determination to boost demand, which is essential if these measures are to achieve their purpose.

However, I detect a change in the economic weather. Surely the most significant step towards a more balanced policy is the appointment of Mark Carney—not on a white horse—as the next Governor of the Bank of England. The Chancellor was initially rebuffed in his quest to hire Mr Carney but, to his credit, he persevered, upped his offer and landed his man—a man with a record of openness to monetary policy innovation, who has advocated that central banks target both inflation and nominal growth and believes that monetary policy measures to help the economy grow are not exhausted. Last week in Davos he advocated an activist monetary policy with the immediate aim—indeed, priority—of ensuring that the economy reaches “escape velocity”. I take this to mean that growth in the economy reaches a sustainable level where increased tax receipts can take over from austerity as the principal driver of debt reduction—a virtuous cycle of growth replacing a vicious cycle of cuts and persistent recession.

Therefore, Mr Carney is part of the plan B that dare not speak its name. He may deploy a range of initiatives such as forward guidance targeting growth and expanding the supply of Bank reserves to purchase a range of long-term assets with the aim of increasing spending. However, monetary policy can, as Mr Carney himself has emphasised, only take us so far. Bold fiscal measures are needed to help the economy move forward. Mark Carney has shown that he is adept at taking full advantage in a sellers’ market. I expect that in his discussions with the Chancellor he has emphasised the limits of monetary policy, however innovative, and secured an acknowledgement from the Chancellor that a series of fiscal measures need to be introduced to create the demand the economy so badly needs. It is vital that the Chancellor and his new governor work closely together to develop a co-ordinated monetary and fiscal approach to reach “escape velocity”. For his part, the Chancellor must adopt the most effective fiscal initiatives to increase demand and promote investment, particularly in infrastructure.

Temporary fiscal measures which boost growth will make it more likely that the medium-term targets can be met and will, I believe, so long as the medium-term framework remains intact, be welcomed by financial markets which have become increasingly concerned about the depressive consequences of untrammelled austerity, as we have heard from other noble Lords. I would like to see the Chancellor introduce a UK version of the successful temporary payroll tax cut in the US and reduce employees’ NIC by 2p in each of the next two years. The cost, after taking account of the tax generated by the additional economic activity, will be around £5 billion a year.

This weekend, the Deputy Prime Minister acknowledged that the coalition made a mistake in cutting much of its capital spending. Now is the time to reinstate the capital spending on the school build programme and on social housing. If we are to tackle the growing investment deficit in infrastructure and in energy, estimated to be £350 billion and £175 billion over the next 30 years respectively by McKinsey Global Institute, the Government must take action. Offering loan guarantees is a welcome step but only if it is accompanied by measures, such as the introduction of road pricing on motorways, which can provide private investors with an adequate rate of return.

Funding infrastructure remains a challenge, despite the Government’s exhortations to the pension funds to invest. The Government could consider the introduction of tax-free infrastructure bonds for individuals, taking advantage of historically low long-term interest rates and providing hard-pressed savers, who have been badly penalised by low interest rates, with improved returns. Many infrastructure projects are, inevitably, medium-term or long-term in nature and so is their effect on demand. Boosting short-term demand could be achieved by a reduction in VAT on building works at domestic residences from 20% to, say, 5% over the next two years. This would encourage households to invest to improve their properties and utilise the currently under-employed pool of construction skills.

The Government have a vital role to play in promoting growth. The Chancellor made a bold move in appointing an activist and innovator as the Governor of the Bank of England. He now needs to display a similar appetite for activism and innovation by adopting bold measures to promote investment and growth.

Autumn Statement

Lord Hollick Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

I could spend the rest of the three minutes and a lot longer on this but I will be brief. Again, I am grateful to my noble friend for his remarks.

On how the infrastructure is funded, there is still a need for a large debt component in many of the projects, and the debt markets continue to be very difficult. My noble friend is completely right about the appetite of the sovereign wealth funds and I will be going to the Gulf again to visit a number of them next week. But the debt component remains difficult.

As to whether the investment is flowing through, total private and public investment in infrastructure is now running at £33 billion per year compared to an average of £29 billion per year under the previous Government—even with all the investment in social infrastructure that went on. While there is more to be done, that is an important number.

There are other areas, yes, where we need to make more progress. I draw my noble friend’s attention to the policy decisions on energy over the last week, which should now enable the energy markets and investors to invest in a broad sweep of nuclear, renewable and gas assets.

[Lord Hollick]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the Minister. Optimistic he may be, but what remarkable chutzpah he and the Chancellor have shown on a day when they have missed all their key targets.

I wonder if he could help me with just a couple of points in the blizzard of information that we have had today. Is there any increasing demand as a result of the measures announced? As the Minister knows, demand is absolutely essential if we are to have growth and it would appear that the OBR has taken into account all the measures but has still downgraded significantly the growth over the next five years.

Secondly, in Annex B.1 of the Treasury document, the suggestion is that the bottom three deciles of the population will bear about three-quarters of the burden of the fiscal consolidation. In 2015-16, 96% of the reduction will be borne by cuts in welfare and public spending; only 4% will come from tax increases. That is rather different from the 80:20 the Chancellor talked about.

Finally, on the question of interesting accounting, the Autumn Statement includes receipt in the current financial year of £3.5 billion from the auction of the 4G spectrum, which is yet to take place. This receipt is apparently used in the current year to reduce the debt, but appears then to be used in the following financial year to finance spending plans. How can that be?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, first, the test of increase in demand will ultimately be the growth numbers. The OBR has set out its forecast of growth numbers and—I can only repeat—it is forecasting higher growth next year for the UK compared to countries such as France and Germany.

On the question of the distribution, I draw the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Hollick, to the new chart on the overall level of benefit and public spending receipts in the supplementary document, which shows that, contrary to what the noble Lord is saying, the overall result is significantly progressive across the quintiles.

The deficit reduction plan will continue to be on a 80:20 basis; in other words, with 80% of the deficit consolidation coming from spending reductions and only 20% from tax—just as it was before today. That has not changed. As far as the spectrum auction is concerned, the £3.5 billion has been certified by the OBR as its central estimate of the money that will be coming in this tax year.

Independent Commission on Banking

Lord Hollick Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hollick]

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s response. It is an important step, but only a first step, to what surely must be full separation of the banks. That is the logic of the Vickers report and is, I should point out, the logic of the Government’s response, which states:

“The Government believes that the ring-fenced bank should not be dependent on the financial health of the rest of its corporate group for its solvency or liquidity”.

If that is to be achieved, the treasury function, which is right at the heart of banking, would need to be split and there would need to be two treasury functions. Similarly, loan capital would have to be provided separately from the high street bank. That would simply leave the question that my noble friend Lord Eatwell raised: what happens to the capital in the event that the holding company goes under? Surely, the logic of this is to separate these two completely. Can the Minister confirm that banks would be required to separate the treasury function, whereby loan capital will have to be raised separately for the high street bank?

[Lord Sassoon]

First, I do not accept that the Government’s logic drives towards complete separation any more than the ICB itself argued for it. The ICB and the Government believe that there are efficiency and other benefits in allowing banks to keep the two parts of the business together under one holding company. However, the principal protection in the areas to which the noble Lord refers is that there will be limits on the exposures of the ring-fenced bank to other parts of the group. That is what, in particular, will deal with the noble Lord’s concerns.

Regulatory and Banking Reform

Lord Hollick Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

My noble friend’s first question was about whether this is twin peaks, triple peaks or whatever. I have always found that a somewhat stale way to analyse the issue because over the past decade constant comparisons were being made between single peaks, twin peaks and so on, so I am reluctant to be drawn into characterising what we are now proposing as any number of peaks. All I can say is that it is emphatically not a triple-peak solution in that the macroprudential and the micro in the PRA are going to be in one body in the Bank of England. So although characterising it as twin peaks is closer to the models that have been analysed by academics and others over the last few years, it gets us back to language that I am not sure is entirely helpful. However, it is certainly not a triple-peak solution.

On the questions around separation and permeability of the ring-fence, the Government will be guided by the independent commission’s final report. But it is also important to recognise what the ICB’s interim report did and did not say. To put it simply, it certainly was not a division between retail and investment banking. The commission acknowledged that a balance has to be struck between imposing very high costs on an important sector and the degree of safety. The point of firewalling is not to eliminate all risk, but to minimise the risk and cost to the taxpayer should a bank fail. The ICB is now focused on these issues between now and September. The principal issues to be looked at by the Government and the Bank of England will be the powers to manage the collapse of any investment bank, were that to happen in the future. As I hope was clear from my honourable friend’s Statement, one of the principles in establishing the ring-fence is to make sure that the taxpayer is not exposed on either side of it. Therefore, getting rid of the risk of moral hazard is at the centre of the construct that we are looking to put in place.

[Lord Hollick]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the Government’s endorsement of the requirement for high-street banks to be better capitalised. However, I share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, about the efficacy and efficiency of ring-fencing, as opposed to total separation. As the Minister will know from his time in the City, banking groups are funded and the Treasury is run on a group basis. To separate the groups and deal with permeability will be extremely difficult. A legal separation would reduce, if not eliminate, the risk of inter-group contagion. It would also allow the risks of the high-street bank and the investment bank—or whatever the Minister chooses to call it—to be properly priced. This would benefit the ordinary consumer. The lower cost of borrowing that a better capitalised high-street bank paid could then be passed on to the borrower.

The second issue that arises on this is, again, a welcome commitment to apply this right across the banking industry. However, many of our banks are headquartered in other countries. Have the Government had any discussions with the Governments of, for instance, the United States and Spain? Do they share the Government’s enthusiasm for this approach? Will the Government also ensure that the lead regulator—whether in the United States or in Spain—will follow the same path?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, there are many questions wrapped up in all that. I am conscious that we have four minutes to go. I repeat myself, but we have set up the independent commission with a suitable group of experts and resourced with a secretariat that is now grappling with precisely these questions. Legal separation has, in the history of the US and Glass-Steagall, proved itself to be an incomplete answer to this. We have to find the best answer. We have set out the Government’s perspective, which is to endorse the principle, and set down the standards by which we shall judge the solution that the commission comes up with. I am sure it will listen to the ideas that are put forward here this afternoon, as well as to all the other submissions that it receives. It is not an easy challenge for the commission, but it is made up of the best people to carry it out.

On the international side, one of the standards by which the Government will judge the solution and decide whether to endorse it is compatibility with the international rules. That is the minimum. That is not what the noble Lord went on to say. As to whether other people will come with us, all I can say is that there has been a high degree of interest in what the commission has come up with in its interim report. People around the world are studying it. We shall see in time whether they will follow it. All I know is that the eyes of the world are very much on the continuing work of the commission.

Economy: Growth

Lord Hollick Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Lord Hollick]

To call attention to the case for policies to support economic growth and to promote investment, innovation, technology, infrastructure, skills and job creation; and to move for Papers.

[Lord Hollick]

My Lords, today’s debate on growth draws on the impressive range of experience and knowledge in our Chamber. We have five maiden speeches to look forward to—from the noble Lords, Lord Kestenbaum, Lord Wood, Lord Collins and Lord Popat, and the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington.

One of the keys to growth is productivity, and in today’s time-constrained debate, although gratefully somewhat extended, that means saying more in less time. I will do my best. I do not wish to rehash the debate about the pace of the fiscal consolidation adopted by the Chancellor. That was discussed at length last week. Putting the public finances on a sound and sustainable footing after the financial crisis is an essential first step towards recovery, but we cannot cut our way out of our economic problems. We also need a credible strategy for growth, because growth matters. Small changes in the growth rate over the next few years can undermine the Chancellor’s deficit reduction plan, and if he chooses to stick to plan A that might well lead to even deeper and more damaging cuts. Low growth in the short term will make big differences to our standard of living in the long term.

A reduction in our long-term growth rate from 2.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent would reduce aggregate growth over the next 20 years by nearly 30 per cent. A prolonged period of low growth would inflict a decade of stagnation, a loss of international competitiveness, a sharp deterioration in public services and a generation of jobless young people. The Government now acknowledge this and have begun to turn their attention to growth. Growth in our economy is currently anaemic, and we still have the full impact of the cuts to come, with their inevitable blow to consumer and business demand and confidence. Food and fuel prices are rising, and the Japanese economy has been badly hit. Against that background, the risk to the OBR’s forecast is very much on the downside.

The Plan for Growth, published with the Budget, is a welcome document, and so are many of the measures announced in the Budget to promote growth. The plan is the latest in a long line of efforts to improve our economic growth rate, stretching back to the work of Neddy in the 1960s. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Layard and I are veterans of the 1996 Commission on Public Policy and British Business report, entitled Promoting Prosperity. What is striking about this 50-year body of work is that, after allowing for the impact of greater globalisation and the emergence of new technologies, there is a remarkable consistency of analysis, findings and proposed remedies. Underinvestment, low productivity, inadequate skills, lack of availability of finance and over-burdensome regulation are ever-present themes. This consistency points to the deep-rooted nature of the problem and the sheer difficulty and complexity of raising the growth rate in a developed country in a highly competitive world economy.

Another lesson from past growth initiatives and plans is the overriding importance of excellent and consistent implementation and execution of policy measures. Too often, Governments chop and change, introducing new wheezes which have a short-term political impact but fail to provide the consistent and predictable environment that business needs. Much is promised, but little is delivered.

Improving productivity is a key driver of growth and has rightly been a priority in all plans. Yet, despite a good relative performance over the past 15 years, UK productivity per hour is some 17 per cent lower than the US and 10 per cent below that of Germany. Our services sector, the largest driver of jobs growth, responsible for 65 per cent of private sector output, accounts for much of that productivity gap. Improved skills, not least management capability, greater innovation and improved levels of investment are necessary preconditions to improving productivity.

The Budget brought some notable changes to planning and important clarity on tax treatment of overseas profits, but only limited deregulation. Some old friends reappeared. Enterprise zones, despite their very modest record and short-term impact, are back in fashion. Better, surely, to make the whole of the UK an enterprise zone with time-limited measures to promote enterprise, investment and business formation. If the Government really believe in localism, allow our cities to introduce their own set of policies to attract investment, to develop clusters and to meet local training needs. Business and investors partner with cities around the world, and would welcome the opportunity to do so in the UK.

While that deregulation is promised, other parts of the Government are busy undermining proven ingredients of our success. The creative sector, where I spent much of my career, accounts for more than 7 per cent of GDP, and relies on the steady supply of richly talented individuals. That does not happen as a course of nature. The likes of James Dyson, Paul Smith, Ridley Scott, Simon Rattle, Keith Richard and Alexander McQueen all went to art school, where the wild and the wacky creative talents can flourish. Art schools have had significantly to up their intake of overseas students to make ends meet. That, and the high level of fees, risks choking off the very supply of talent, often from disadvantaged backgrounds, that we need to remain a world leader.

Reductions in the level of taxation on profits and an increase in the level of tax incentives to invest are guaranteed a very warm welcome, but have they been targeted effectively? In the light of the need to boost investment, I would favour tax breaks on investment rather than a faster reduction in the overall rate of corporation tax. Why does investment in capital goods receive favourable tax allowance treatment, when intangible investment in process improvements, creative ideas, skills and IT, all of which drive innovation and productivity and in many businesses are the most important components of growth, are disadvantaged? In addition to their aim to achieve simplicity in tax matters, the Government should also adopt the principle of neutrality.

The UK has long been a laggard in capital investment. Last year, investment sank to 15 per cent of GDP, down from a 30-year average of 17 per cent, compared with 19 per cent in Germany and 21 per cent in France. Two particular areas of underinvestment stand out: infrastructure and energy. In its report last November on growth priorities, the McKinsey Global Institute estimated that the UK needs to spend £350 billion on transport over the next 20 years to renew our strategic network of roads, railways and airports to expand capacity and help to close the productivity gap. A further £170 billion is required over the same 20-year period to renew our energy infrastructure. It is therefore regrettable that the Government have gone for a quick political fix on fuel duty by clobbering the oil companies and thereby putting the oil companies’ investment plans at risk.

The Government currently enjoy exceptionally low long-term borrowing costs and should and must be at the heart of this vast infrastructure investment programme. But here we come up against a persistent and wretched piece of Treasury dogma, which dictates that, unlike in most OECD countries and contrary to the rules operating in the European Union, all borrowing by the Government, even if it can be serviced from cash revenues, must be included in the PSBR. Of course, borrowing that has to be financed through future taxation must be included, but if the return exceeds the cost of borrowing, the borrowing should not count towards the PSBR. As my former colleague at the IPPR, Gerry Holtham has pointed out, a state infrastructure bank could turn the PFI model on its head and provide loan finance for the construction of a road which could then be leased to the private sector in return for a rental income which can service and repay the debt. Road usage forecasting is sufficiently robust to enable the risk to the taxpayer of default to be covered by an appropriate guarantee charge, which should be included in the PSBR.

The income to finance the renewal of our road network will flow from the long overdue introduction of road pricing, which can easily be deployed using the vehicle number plate recognition system that works very effectively in London. Charging consumers for the use of expensive public assets is a fact of life in most countries, but in the UK, the very threat of it leads to a serious outbreak of jitters in the Government. I have advocated its introduction to Ministers in this Government and their predecessor and have always been met with an enthusiastic response to the idea but a terror at having to take responsibility for its introduction. The very severe challenges we face require boldness and courage from the Government. Timidity simply will not do.

Road pricing is but one example of how Governments can open up new markets and foster demand without recourse to the Exchequer. This Government and their predecessors have been quietly and impressively working, using administrative and legal powers to create new markets in the energy sector. Feed-in tariffs and the upcoming Green Deal are two such examples. The costs of the solar panels installed under the feed-in tariff scheme are largely borne by the total population of electricity consumers. The Green Deal is likely to see a range of energy-saving technology installed in homes, paid for by loans from electricity suppliers, which will be paid out of fuel-cost savings. The green mortgage thus created will attach to the property until repaid, regardless of who the owner is. Both schemes will create many jobs quickly, boost the economy and encourage product innovation and manufacturing. Another more conventional idea floated by the Secretary of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change just before the Budget, which sadly did not survive the Treasury cull, was to lower the rate of VAT to 5 per cent for a limited period for home refurbishment and repairs up to a limit of, say, £20,000. This would have created many new jobs quickly, improved the housing stock and brought some cash transactions that are currently not in the VAT net back into the VAT net—all at a modest cost to the Exchequer. Perhaps the Secretary of State’s suggestion is being held back for next year’s Budget.

Another opportunity to stimulate a market and create demand at no cost to the taxpayer is the provision of sophisticated healthcare technology to the home that can be monitored remotely and that will allow the elderly and infirm to remain safely and happily in their own home and to delay or avoid the expensive option of a care home. This could be financed out of existing local authority budgets.

Ready access to finance is the sine qua non of growth. SMEs complain about the lack of availability of loan finance and the steep cost of loan renewal. Project Merlin might help but needs to be very closely monitored. Many SMEs are held back by a lack not of loan finance but of capital, and while there are welcome increases in the EIS and VCT allowances for early-stage companies, the threshold levels are set far too low to help the one sector of our economy that can create the majority of new jobs that we so badly need. Again, timidity seems to have won out.

The Plan for Growth reminds me of my school report—“a worthy and promising start, but much, much more needs to be done”. The OBR’s judgment was more dismissive; it saw insufficient evidence that The Plan for Growth would do anything to raise long-term growth. I anticipate that your Lordships will identify today many ideas and opportunities that will help us to improve on that position.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hollick]

My Lords, this has been an excellent debate. I thank every speaker for the informed and constructive way in which it was conducted. There were many excellent ideas and there have been five outstanding maiden speeches, which give us a glimpse of the formidable contribution that our new colleagues are going to bring to our debates.

The Minister has not had the opportunity or the time to go through each and every one of the suggestions that was made. Perhaps he will find an opportunity in future to do that, and perhaps he will take up the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, of having a meeting in the Moses Room to discuss some of these things. The contribution that has been made today is worthy of continuing discussion and serious consideration by the Government. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.