Littering from Vehicles Bill [HL]

Lord Lawson of Blaby Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lawson of Blaby]

My Lords, I am very glad that the luck of the draw has enabled me to speak after my noble friend Lord Marlesford. I think I speak for most noble Lords in this House in congratulating him on bringing forward this measure. It is a modest measure, but one that will undoubtedly improve the quality of life in this country. Far from costing any public money, it would save it. Above all, it would improve, quite simply and straightforwardly, the quality of life in this country. I also congratulate him on his persistence. For at least a decade, if not longer, and under Governments of both parties, he has been banging away at this issue. That is the only way in which you can ever get anything done. I think we all congratulate him most warmly on that.

There is no need for me to speak at any great length because the noble Lord has said everything that needs to be said. The resistance that has been put up over the years is quite extraordinary. There has never been any objection in principle or because of the costs—there could not be, as this would save public money—to the measures that my noble friend Lord Marlesford has put forward on a number of occasions and has now brought forward in this excellent Bill. All that happens is procrastination, which is unacceptable and intolerable.

When the Minister responds to this, I am sure that he will have been briefed by officials to resist it; that is what always happens. I know my noble friend to be a man of discernment, judgment, common sense and independence of mind, so I very much hope that he will tear up his brief—although not, of course, to announce that he will accept the Bill. That would be going too far; we know that the officials take great pride in their authorship. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Marlesford will be perfectly content if, as I hope, the Minister will say, “Of course, we cannot accept Lord Marlesford’s Bill, but we will bring forward, without delay, a government Bill to enact precisely what he is proposing”. I hope that he will do that and, incidentally, that he will also speak personally to the Secretary of State for the Environment—I charge him with this, and I shall check up on it—show him the report of this debate in our House this morning and make sure that my right honourable friend is fully aware of the views of all noble Lords in this House who will speak in this debate.

That, therefore, is what my noble friend has to do: tear up his officials’ brief and speak to our right honourable friend Owen Paterson—I am glad that he has got the message. The time of procrastination must stop; the time for action is now.

Queen's Speech

Lord Lawson of Blaby Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lawson of Blaby]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate, who speaks with such authority about some of the problems of rural England. I also congratulate most warmly my noble friend Lady Wilcox on her maiden speech as a Minister. I cannot pretend that I agreed with every single word that she uttered, but she uttered them with enormous charm. Above all, I wish the new Government every success in the massive task before them and the resolve to stick to that task despite the deep unpopularity that inescapably lies ahead.

I warmly welcome the statement in large type at the end of the coalition’s agreed Our Programme for Government, which states:

“The deficit reduction programme takes precedence over any of the other measures in this agreement”.

Quite right. There must be no sacred cows and no sacred departments.

Meanwhile, I welcome the start that has been made in cutting public expenditure and reducing the public deficit, with an in-year cut of a little under 1 per cent of total public spending. This is, of course, only a minuscule fraction of what has to be done, but essentially it is an earnest of the Government’s intentions. The first Budget of my right honourable friend Mr George Osborne later this month will need both to get to grips with the immediate crisis and to set out, in convincing terms, the financial prospect and programme for the next five years. I wish him well.

I detect unease in some quarters about the promised increase in capital gains tax rates. In so far as I understand it, I fully endorse what the Government have in mind, which is perhaps not surprising, since I introduced a similar reform in my 1988 Budget. I do not have time to set it out now, but I refer noble Lords to cols. 1004-06 of the Official Report for 15 March of that year. That reform—it is not without interest that the Reagan Administration in the United States introduced much the same reform at much the same time for much the same reasons—worked very well and lasted successfully for more than a decade.

The previous Government’s foolish decision to undo that position, abolishing both indexation and the tapering relief, which was a rough and ready substitute for it, and replacing it with a capital gains tax rate of 18 per cent, has had three main consequences: it created a bonanza for short-term speculators; it led to a massive increase in tax avoidance and thus a serious and continuing loss of income tax revenue—the point is the income tax revenue, not the revenue from capital gains tax; and it greatly stimulated the buy-to-let boom, thus hugely inflating the housing market, which has been a major cause of the worst boom and bust that we have suffered since the war.

I welcome the fact that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister chose to make the economy the subject of his first major speech as Prime Minister. However, I have some questions about what he called “rebalancing our economy”, which he explained meant less dependence on banking and finance and a boost to manufacturing. Banking and finance are not only a major growth industry in the age of globalisation but one of the few major industries in which this country is a world leader. To have the objective of shrinking it would both amaze and delight our overseas competitors. Of course there need to be changes to reduce greatly systemic risk and I welcome the new Government’s decision to have an independent commission to look into how best to separate traditional retail and commercial banking on the one hand from high-risk investment banking on the other. As the Governor of the Bank of England, among others, has cogently argued, that badly needs to be done.

I have to observe that, far from assisting manufacturing, the Government, like their predecessor, appear to be hell-bent on clobbering it further by substantially increasing its energy costs in the name of an intellectually incoherent climate change policy. There is no time to elaborate on this today, but I commend to noble Lords the excellent and grim speech made by the eminent engineer Sir Alan Rudge to the Royal Academy of Engineering some six weeks ago. I hope that the Government will read it and ponder it. I add only that to impose this burden on British manufacturing industry unilaterally—for none of our competitors has the slightest intention of following suit—is not only suicidal but completely pointless, since even those most concerned about carbon emissions agree that it is only global emissions that matter. At the very least, I ask the Government to undertake to hold a fundamental review of UK climate and energy policy in the light of the outcome of the United Nations climate change conference to be held in Cancun in December.