Deregulation Bill

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, it is important to place on the record and clarify some of the misunderstandings that took place in Committee. At the beginning of the discussions on the Bill, the Government prayed in aid, with a great deal of enthusiasm, the recommendations of Professor Löfstedt, who is professor of risk management at King’s College London. That enthusiasm became less and less as Members of the Committee challenged some of the statements contained in the proposals. Certainly, my noble friend Lord McKenzie challenged them on a number of occasions.

In Committee on 21 October, the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle, said:

“I was in contact with Professor Löfstedt in the past week. He has seen the wording of the Bill and appears to be very content with it”.—[Official Report, 21/10/14; col. 568.]

It is important that we set the record straight: Professor Löfstedt is not in the least bit happy. My noble friend has already quoted from his letter. To save time, I will quote a small additional bit. He says that,

“the proposed Government list may increase injury and death in the workplace something that I never intended with my original recommendation”.

It is very serious that there has been a misunderstanding about the authoritative recommendations that were claimed to be behind this proposal. I agree with my noble friend: it will increase confusion; it will add complexity to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act; it will add burdens to the conscientious self-employed who want clarification about their obligations; and it is a charter for cowboys. I urge the House to support the amendment.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, it is very noticeable that when people such as those from the Federation of Small Businesses are asked, “Where is the evidence that more people ought to be excluded?”, they say, “It is not a question of particular evidence; it is a question of perception”. Something rings a bell in my mind when somebody says, “It is not the evidence; it is a question of perception”. As somebody once said, what about changing the perception? I think that is where we are at the moment. Indeed, that is where the Government and the employers do not want us to be—to look at the evidence.

Instead, there are lots of crocodile tears and lots of red herrings dragged across the trail. One red herring is, “They do it in Germany”. Well, they do lots of things in Germany. In the one minute I have available, I say to the Government that if they would like to start citing Germany and give us the whole employment package that they have in Germany, we on this side will vote for it. I put that proposal; perhaps the Government would like to agree to it.

Finally, there is a trend in Britain today, whether or not it is being deliberately promulgated—that makes it sound like some sort of conspiracy theory, but I do not go in for conspiracy theories because we are often at the receiving end of them. But if there has been an increase in self-employment, it is hard to reconcile with the idea that it is very difficult to be self-employed now because of all the red tape. Anyway, on one side there has been a vast increase in self-employment, if we can get our brains around that. On the other side, there are a number of people who do not have contracts of employment. That is partly a question of whether, ex hypothesi, in a static labour market there are a greater number of people in work. But on the employed side of the labour market, which is the vast majority, the quality of the contracts of employment is being reduced bit by bit.

One of the great advances since the war has been to improve the quality and content of the contract of employment. If you were to interview a random group of self-employed people and a random group of people with good contracts of employment, a lot of people who are self-employed would turn out to have some sort of relation to the employed but with a subcontract in the middle whereby they are not really self-employed—they are on something which does not give them a contract of employment with four weeks paid holiday and all the rest of it. Will the Minister therefore comment on the fact that it is very desirable that the good-quality contract of employment terms are a benchmark for the self-employed, and that this is not a further means of endeavouring gradually to wear away a benchmark on which we in this country have always been able to rely?

[Lord Jordan (Lab)]

My Lords, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 transformed the safety landscape for all people at work. For the first time, it told everyone at work, “You are responsible for safety”. The Government’s proposals concerning the self-employed are a step backwards, telling some people, “Don’t worry, you are not responsible if someone gets hurt”.

Those who know the world of work are telling the Government that they have got it wrong. The Government have told them that the cost of regulation will be reduced, but they know that the cost of regulation pales into insignificance against the cost of accidents. The CBI and the EEF know it and, as my noble friend Lord McKenzie said, have both told the Government that the self-employed exemption in its current form is not fit for purpose.

What will be the cost of ignoring the significant warning of Professor Löfstedt? He is worth quoting, because he has analysed the possibilities. He has said:

“The danger with the proposed list is that self-employed individuals who are not on it will be exempt even if the jobs that these individuals do are in actual fact rather dangerous and unsafe. In other words the proposed Government list may increase injury and death in the workplace”.

The Government proposals, in their present form, will carry a cost: not in money, but in lives. This amendment will help to prevent that.

Littering from Vehicles Bill [HL]

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Selsdon]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Marlesford for two reasons. First, I support what he is doing, and, secondly, as we are having a general debate about litter, it means that my own Bill, which will be taken as the last business today, will, in the quickest possible time ever, go through its Second Reading.

I shall try to introduce a little bit of internationalism into this debate. I like driving cars. My father spent his life motor-racing, including in a great Talbot, which my noble friend here may well recall, and I have worked internationally. I do not like going by train; I drive probably hundreds of thousands of miles across the continent of Europe. The biggest single change that I have noticed has been the improvement in the quality of the roads, the cleanliness of the roads and the greater facilities for disposing of rubbish. More than that, whereas we would have thought that our French cousins were a little bit lackadaisical in these matters, they have now become some of the toughest people in Europe. The fines imposed on the spot can be very severe as well.

I am assuming that this Bill covers things such as what falls off the back of a lorry. Things dropping off the back are, to some extent, litter and are extremely dangerous, particularly when empty lorries, usually from eastern Europe, are moving at extremely high speeds. That leads to more chipped and broken windscreens, and of course there are companies which believe that, even if you have a microchip in your windscreen, you can claim for a new one on your insurance, and that automatically puts up your insurance premium.

However, it is the general attitude to cleanliness that I find intriguing. Your Lordships will know that much of continental Europe—Germany, France and Italy—has weekly, or often twice-weekly, markets within local communities. At one time, they would remain relatively uncleaned, but now, within a matter of hours of shutting down, they are cleaned completely. People who bring in lorries and other vehicles are punished very severely if they do not stick to the rules. It is quite a simple punishment: everybody sneaks on their neighbours, a little man from the environment department turns up and, before you know it, you are given a little fine, which you have to pay at the post office within a very short period. If you do not, the fine doubles and doubles and doubles and, before long, you find that another person turns up suggesting that they should take your car away.

I happen to be a wine producer in France. We have a major problem there, which I had not realised. When you deliver grapes to be pressed, you may have juice running off the back of the trailer. You are now required to clean that up. Every single bit and piece must be collected, and the rubbish collections are superb. We have to admit that here in the London area in the UK there has been a dramatic improvement in rubbish collecting. However, the problem that we have with cars is: what do you put the rubbish in before you dispose of it? My wife gave me a whole range of nappy bags. I carry three or four of them—I have two in my pocket at the moment; I had not realised—in which to put things that I may have in my car. You drive a long distance eating wine gums and so on, you put the packet in the bag and when you stop for petrol you find that there are bins in which to dispose of it. That is now true of most garages in the United Kingdom. Because they are selling food and other items, they have bins in which to dispose of the rubbish. Therefore, dealing with these issues is purely a matter of organisation.

Looking at the international scene, I also find that now, believe it or not, some of the most badly behaved people are British families in large 4x4s driving to the Alps to ski. I have followed them occasionally and, for a bit of fun, have taken a note of their vehicle registration numbers. Occasionally, because I have friends in the DVLA, I manage to find their telephone number and I give them a ring. I just say, “I happen to be involved in the political world a bit, and it was noticed that at a particular point you did this”. Most of the continental motorways have a sign every kilometre or half-kilometre, or even more frequently, so you know exactly where you are, as do the spies. If the police decide that they may be a little short of income for Christmas, the number of fines seems to go up. There is of course absolutely no connection between the two issues, but this is self-interest.

There is something that I suggest should happen in this country. If you are travelling a long distance, you switch on the radio. Usually, I switch on a programme that broadcasts a mixture of music at my level, which is relatively low, and it then provides me with information. Usually a voice will say, “It’s Gloria here. Watch out. A bit has fallen off the back of a lorry at so-and-so”. You are given a complete report of what is happening. This occurs with smaller roads as well. If you have the new systems that you plug in, you can get everything you want. There is no reason why greater controls cannot be introduced effectively by using those systems. I suggest that one way of doing this is to get the radio stations, which are listened to by people travelling in cars, to point these things out.

I am really grateful to my noble friend Lord Marlesford, and I am also looking forward to being able to—

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

According to the noble Lord’s logic, would the answer be that all the Brits should go and live in France and all the French should come and live here?

[Lord Selsdon]

The noble Lord has raised an interesting point. One worry is that most of the rich French seem to want to come and live here, but in general they are among the tidiest people of all. I am grateful to the noble Lord for making that point. We are in an international world and one of the difficulties has been in training tourists and others in how to behave when they come here, because there are inadequate bins in which to dispose of rubbish. Noble Lords might like to ask themselves: where in Parliament is there a bin to dispose of something? It is quite difficult to find one.

I am grateful to my noble friend. He has done his usual Marlesford job: he is really nice and gentle but, when it gets down to it, he sticks the knife in.

Food: Waste

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

I thank my noble friend for that important and interesting suggestion. I will take it back.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that there might well be a current spike in food waste that could be addressed by more of the waste being taken away by horse and cart?

[Lord De Mauley]

Very droll, my Lords. I can assure the noble Lord that when products such as those that I think he is referring to are tested, or are part of an ongoing investigation, they will be held securely and when ready to be released the products will be disposed of appropriately. Of course, if it is safe and appropriate for a product to go to anaerobic digestion rather than incineration or landfill, I hope it will. Needless to say, products that are not fit to be sold will not find their way back into the food chain.

Crime: Wildlife Crime

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My noble friend makes an extremely important point. In the past, I have been on safari in those wonderful countries seeing those wonderful animals. The more that tourism is encouraged in those countries, the more that money is brought into those countries, the more people will recognise the value of the wildlife. That will contribute to clamping down on crime.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords, in so far as it is an international wish to prevent the extinction of lions, elephants, et cetera, is it not logical to say that in conjunction with African Governments, who have population pressures—which is why in the localities people are not so keen to do much about this problem—the police forces in those countries need a lot more resource? Would it not be logical to say that there should be international help with that resourcing for the local police forces?

[Lord De Mauley]

In fairness to many of those countries, their Governments recognise the problem. Some countries are making major efforts. As I said, we are doing quite a lot but we all must do better.

Thames Tideway Tunnel

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

No, my Lords, we are not indifferent; we take these things very seriously. As I say, however, we believe in free access to our capital markets.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords, has the noble Lord seriously considered whether he has given adequate answers to all the questions that have been asked in the last five minutes? Will he write, and put in the Library, a full letter on the considerations in the Government’s mind about where we go from here on all these matters?

[Lord De Mauley]

I cannot think of anything that I would like to expand upon but I will look at the record and, if there is anything, of course I will write.

Water: National Grid

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My noble friend makes a very good point, indicating that water efficiency is one of the key strategies which it is in all our interests to pursue, particularly at this time when drought threatens a good deal of the country. That and water capture and storage are strategies which individuals and businesses can undertake for themselves.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

Does the Minister recall that the last time the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, invented a statistic regarding the water directive—in this case, £65 billion—he got his arithmetic wrong, as he subsequently acknowledged, by a factor of 1,000? Does the Minister think that the same is likely to apply on this occasion?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I cannot possibly comment on the accuracy of the mathematics of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. He has placed a figure before the House and, of course, is accountable for what he has suggested, but I cannot comment on it.

Agriculture: Dairy Industry

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I ought to make it clear that prices have in fact gone up somewhat. The average price in December was 26.4 pence per litre, which was a 5.8 per cent increase on a year ago. However, I appreciate that other prices for dairy producers have gone up just as fast and that they are facing quite severe problems. As regards the work being done in the EU, I think that the right reverend Prelate referred to the High Level Group on dairy. We will certainly be making appropriate comments on that and feeding in our views to what the Commission is proposing.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

As I understand it, there are 17,000 dairy farms in this country and the average dairy farm gets a subsidy of £30,000 a year, which by my arithmetic is £500 million. There are 2 million cows, so each cow gets £250. I am sure the NFU will say that the cow does not get it and that the farmer does not get it. So who does get it? Could it be that the processors get it, the supermarkets get it, or the consumer gets it? Somebody must get it, so should there not be something like the Office for Budget Responsibility or the new adjudicator to clarify analytically who does get it?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I cannot confirm or deny the figures produced by the noble Lord, but I can give him an assurance that subsidies go to the farmers and not to the cows as I imagine that the cows do not have bank accounts.

Foxes

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am sure that foxes going into another place are a matter for another place. It might be that they are less keen on coming into this House. As regards my noble friend’s question about food, she is absolutely correct: if less food were left around, we would have less of a problem with urban foxes.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

Will the Minister take into consideration a recent event in Crondall when we had a power cut? It was established that it was due to a short-circuit caused by a fox. The consequence was, of course, the demise of the fox. Could this idea not be developed, saving electricity at the same time?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I was not aware of the incident to which the noble Lord refers. I certainly think that it could be built on and I am sure that all local authorities will study with great care what the noble Lord has had to say.

Queen's Speech

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords, I should like to address my remarks to social cohesion in the developing government scenario. I was pleased to hear the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky. I put on record how indebted we are to him for the wonderful book he has written about John Maynard Keynes. Keynes is alive and well, thank you very much. There are lessons to be learnt from the 1930s, as the noble Lord has pointed out in that book, even though the world has changed substantially since then. I echo some of the remarks of my noble friend Lord Myners. I look forward to him being a thorn in the flesh of anyone in the Chamber from his new roving position on the Back Benches.

First, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Henley, whether he agrees that the disaster in the financial services industry has caused the explosive growth in the deficit. Unless we get that right, we shall not get anything right. Eighteen months ago, we were at an annualised rate of 2.5 per cent and now we are at 11.1 per cent. What has happened? There has not been a sudden pay increase for public sector workers. I hope we will not have a dialogue of the deaf. Mr Cameron said that he wanted consensus that we would all tick the same boxes: a fairer society, economic growth, an entrepreneurial spirit and so on. How can we have a mature dialogue unless we have answers to some germane questions? In the middle of all this, we have three or four totally separate black holes in the various analyses being put forward. I do not see why that is so.

The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, stopped short of making a point that I should like to make—I believe he would have made the point if he had wished to use this metaphor—that the doctrine of cuts relates to economic growth through the magical resurgence of animal spirits. We are not in the African jungle playing the tom-toms, so what are the animal spirits? Are they the same spirits which led to the disaster? Obviously, if you believe that, you will believe anything. I think that the gloves-on approach in this House in relation to the financial services industry, with some very notable exceptions—I do not want to embarrass my noble friend Lord Myners—suggests that we believe that the financial services industry is still untouchable because it is that part of the world economy which lays the golden eggs. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Henley, would kindly answer this question: is the financial services industry now laying golden eggs or is it laying landmines and hand grenades?

It is always the poor that get the blame. I am afraid we are heading in that direction now. The other day, even the Financial Times—my Bible in many circumstances, although not under the editor who is now director-general of the CBI—described many of the obscene salaries in the private sector, notably in the financial services sector, as salaries from another planet. But today's editor of the Financial Times ran a leading article last week on Britain preparing for battle with the unions. What about all the workers? Are they not part of Britain? What about the analysis before the battle? In 1961, Harold Macmillan, in a difficult economic time, had a private talk with George Woodcock, general secretary of the TUC, which led to the setting up of the National Economic Development Council.

At the moment, I do not think that social cohesion is viewed as important. On the contrary: people are moving away from each other at a terrifying rate. I say this in all seriousness to the Liberal Democrat part of the Government because this is a role which they can play and I wish them well in it. We should be looking at an analysis of industrial and economic players and not just at some sort of doctrinal presentation from politicians, worshipping at the altar of the bond markets. As Angela Merkel, hardly a radical socialist, said the other day, we really ought to work together, including in Europe, to ensure that that comes about.

The public sector is not always paid more than the private sector. If you want a top accountant or an economics expert from KPMG to come into Whitehall, you will have to pay them about 50 or 80 per cent extra, in brown envelopes. If we are not careful, we shall destroy morale in public services—in education and in health—which form part of the living standards of the people of this country, as was pointed out by my noble friend Lord Myners, the other day.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow a fellow Welshman with such an intimate knowledge of the university sector, which I was in for the first 20 years of my career. I agree with almost everything he said. Before speaking on some issues relating to the economy and business, I, like most others today, congratulate my noble friend Lady Wilcox on her appointment as a Minister in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. She is exceptionally qualified for the job, having run her own family business, managed a significant multinational, been on the boards of various companies and chaired the National Consumer Council. On behalf of us all, I wish her well. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Henley, a former Minister, on his current appointment and on his courage in responding to such a wide variety of subjects in today’s debate. I do not envy him.

It is very easy to be depressed about the general economic situation. The UK fiscal position is, frankly, not good. One could say it is rather dire. The eurozone is in crisis, and the markets in the eurozone have been in crisis despite the €750 billion package that was meant to sort out everything. Global financial markets are jitterier than at any time since the aftermath of the financial crisis early last year. Despite this, there are some grounds for optimism. The world economy is growing at more than 4 per cent a year, and world trade has come back in the past 12 months by something like 10 per cent, after having dropped sharply in the recession. In the UK, the coalition Government are unambiguously committed to turning around the financial position, and the pace of the recovery in the UK at present, although fragile, is quite strong in comparison with last year and the projection for next year. Last year, GDP fell by 4.9 per cent; this year, independent forecasts put it at 1 to 2 per cent, and next year it is estimated to be between 2 and 3 per cent. We should take confidence from that.

The key to turning around our economy is sustaining the recovery. That means creating a low tax, enterprise economy that has incentives to save and to build up capital and in which government expenditure is under control. Like the noble Lord, Lord Desai, I think that economic growth is critical. It will lead to higher tax revenues and create more jobs. We have been here before. In the early 1980s and the early 1990s, painful decisions involving cuts in public spending were necessary, but we know that they produced long-term gains. After 1992, we had 16 years of uninterrupted economic growth quarter by quarter.

I believe we can return to that, but we face three challenges. The first is that in the emergency Budget later this month, the Government need to put forward some form of medium-term financial plan that lays out, for at least three years, targets for public spending, taxes, the deficit, public sector borrowing and money supply. They then need to stick to it. Drawing up such a plan is not difficult, and when the numbers are announced later this month they must show a significant reduction in the borrowing requirement as a percentage of GDP. There is no reason why this should lead to a double-dip recession. A medium-term programme that investors believe is credible will restore confidence in the foreign exchange and capital markets and encourage investment. The lower exchange rate—the pound has gone down by 25 per cent over two to three years—will help exports. If we fail in this, and if the Government fail in this, we could well find ourselves in the same position as certain eurozone countries.

Publishing a plan is not difficult, but sticking to it will be. At some stage, the Government’s resolve to balance the books will be tested. There could well be painful strikes, protests and marches, and even the possibility of social unrest, which was mentioned, cannot be ruled out. If we are to return to prosperity and stability, it must be faced. We must avoid the mistakes that Ted Heath made in the early 1970s.

The second challenge that we face relates to the banks. If the recovery is to gain momentum, the banks have to lend more off their own balance sheets and to raise more capital from the equity debt and credit markets for business. Without this, investment will falter and the recovery will be put at risk. At present, there is a lot of talk about new taxes on banks and new regulations on banks. We certainly need a different regulatory framework. I can see why the public are angry at the incompetence, greed and excessive risk taken by banks. Their anger—I say this as a banker—is not without substance. The problem, however, is that if politicians and regulators pursue populist policies that could be quite arbitrary, we might find that the banks, instead of helping the recession and helping growth, are a mortmain on it.

The third challenge is this; it is very important that economic policy is underpinned by a sense of fairness and justice.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way in his last minute. When he referred to the banks, I expected to hear an agenda of banking reform, but his statement seemed to be, “Watch it. Goldman Sachs can do no wrong”. Is that not a bit like the Conservative Party’s caricature 20 years ago of the TUC doing no wrong?

[Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach]

This is a complex subject, and we do not have time tonight to deal with it in detail. Clearly, we need a stronger regulatory structure with very clear rules on capital, liquidity, the structure of compensation and so on; about that I have no doubt. It would be wrong for politicians and regulators to respond to the public anger by piling so much regulation and tax on to the financial sector that it cannot play its role in the recovery.

I am way over my time, but my final point is that the sense of fairness and justice as we face difficult times will be very important. Our enterprise economy should never become a Darwinian jungle. So many things can be done by the coalition Government to present the policies fairly. We are in difficult times. We have been here before, we have taken difficult decisions in the past and pain has resulted in gain, and I have no doubt that we can do it again. I wish the coalition Government every possible success.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Birt]

My Lords, I share the universal delight in the ascent of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, who during the day seems to have risen almost to the status of sainthood. I only hope that her trademark cheery beam will be maintained in the white-water ride ahead.

I offer a new Government my best wishes and my great hope, given the enormous challenges that they face, that in the national interest they will succeed. There is much of the new Government’s inheritance of which we may all be proud: our social, creative and academic vitality as a nation; our tolerance; our ease with diversity; our renewed spirit of enterprise; and the improving performance of our public sector. However, 2010 will surely come to be seen as a year, alongside 1945 and 1979, when a new Government faced the aftermath of a cataclysm: in this instance, the most severe economic shock of our lifetimes.

The urgent task, as I think we almost all recognise, is the elimination over time of the deficit, our pressing need to return to a position where, across the economic cycle, we spend as a nation only what we earn and not what we can borrow. The politics of reducing that deficit will be severe and testing for the coalition. But it can be done; and it must be done. I have no doubt from my own experience of managing both in the public and the private sectors that the deficit can be eliminated with minimal material damage to critical public sector outcomes. Indeed, many private sector organisations, their very survival in question, have faced up to far bigger challenges and in shorter order. However, I do not minimise the particular challenges that the public sector will always present, not least the intensity of scrutiny and the readiness to protest of all the interests affected.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

The noble Lord makes play of a very interesting point about the recession-related deficit—in other words, adjusted for the recession. Does he happen to know the current size of the recession-related deficit?

[Lord Birt]

Perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to move to the end of my remarks and hear my argument in full.

There will be, for there always are, some low hanging fruit for the Treasury to pocket. Government can, and no doubt will, cease doing some things that they do now, but the scalpel will prove a more useful tool than the axe. After a long and unprecedented period of increased public spending, conducting a detailed, painstaking analysis of how every part of the public sector can be more productive will be fruitful.

There will be overcapacity, poorly engineered processes and low utilisation, as well as opportunities for shared services, outsourcing and multiskilling. There will be places where labour costs at every level will be higher than in the market, where smarter procurement can bring benefits and where best practice is not universal. Moreover, no part of the public sector should be excluded from a concerted drive to promote improved productivity. There should be no sacred cows, as the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, said earlier. The Government will need a keen sense of what can be done quickly and what may take a little time. A four or five-year framework will be sensible, as the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, observed. The new Government will discover that while Whitehall has been gradually acquiring in recent years many of the skills needed to oversee large institutions, projects and programmes, the financial skills necessary for the forensic examination of a vast cost base are not yet present in government and will need quickly to be assembled. The new Government will need to reach out into the market for some vital and not just financial skills, and it will need to invest in them if the deficit is to be cut with care. Sometimes you have to spend money to save money.

The other main challenge of the new Government is to restore the health and stability of the economy overall, about which many of your Lordships have spoken. An early and credible plan for cutting the deficit, accompanied by real political unity, will do much to put us back on the right road. But the main task here is to be certain that we have truly identified the causes of our difficulties, both at national and global level, and applied the right remedies. Here I have yet to be reassured. We are two years into the crisis, and still we hear an array of competing views on regulation from technical experts, and we have had world leaders—even in recent months—still bashing bankers rather than explaining how international institutions, nations, regulators, financial organisations, corporations and individuals could all have managed risk more prudently, averting reckless excess, and can manage risk more effectively in future. We appear far from unanimity.

There was an understandable general urge to grapple with how and why we embarked on the war in Iraq. It is not too late for a new Government to bring similar independent scrutiny to bear on the causes of, and the cures for, our current maladies, including the origins of our own structural deficit, which puts us closer to the bottom than the top of the league of virtue among comparable countries. Only on the foundation of a deep understanding and a cool appraisal of all our difficulties can a better future be built.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Henley)]

My Lords, it has been quite a long time since my noble friend Lady Wilcox opened the debate, since when we have heard from some 52 or 53 speakers. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kingsmill, said, we have seen the House of Lords possibly at its best and certainly at its widest in terms of the number of subjects we have covered. It is now my job to try to respond to the wide range of subjects before us, covering a whole array of different departments: the Treasury, transport, energy and climate change, business and my own department, Defra, which I shall get on to in due course.

I shall start by offering my commiserations to the noble Lord, Lord Myners, because he told us that this was his swansong on the Front Bench. As many other noble Lords have said, we will miss him and we look forward to seeing him on the Back Benches. I think it was his noble friend Lady McIntosh who suggested that possibly it was the first of many swansongs and that he was going to become the veritable Frank Sinatra of the Opposition Front Bench by making repeated final speeches. I look forward to those. I also offer my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who offered me some very useful advice from Defra, the department in which he has held office, as has the Lord Speaker and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. The noble Lord made the simple point that nothing is quite as complicated as people tell him.

I shall start by saying a word or two about my own department. As my noble friend Lady Wilcox emphasised in her opening speech, it is the Prime Minister’s ambition that this Government should be the greenest Government ever. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, care for the environment and understanding the value of our natural resources should inform all that we do, and it is the responsibility of Defra to ensure that this imperative is understood by government and all others. We are there to explain and promote the economic value of natural resources so that they are managed better and so that those who come after us do not face hardship and disaster through their growing scarcity. We work to ensure a thriving biodiversity and wildlife by preventing habitat loss and degradation; we act to prevent deforestation and to protect the marine environment; we help businesses and communities to adapt to the effects of a changing climate; and we help those sectors for which we are responsible to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to contribute to the fight against climate change.

However, Defra is not only concerned with the environment; it is also an economic department. In fact, our departmental remit shows that you cannot separate the two. Therefore perhaps our most important job is to show just how the economics and the environment are intertwined.

During the course of the debate I heard repeatedly from this or that noble Lord that they hoped the Minister would in due course comment on their own particular issue. However, that will simply not be possible. I jotted down a range of different subjects, some of which were raised repeatedly, and I hope I will be able to comment on some of the bigger issues. I think noble Lords will understand that I shall not be able to answer every question that was put to me but, as the noble Lord, Lord Myners, put it, I shall do my best to write to all noble Lords—as I did in my previous incarnation as a Minister and as I am sure all Ministers do—in due course when I have collated all the responses from the different departments. However, as I said, I shall try to deal with one or two of the concerns that have been raised today.

I shall start with the Office for Budget Responsibility because that is where the noble Lord, Lord Myners, started. He asked a number of detailed questions which he would not expect me to answer at this stage and which I shall deal with by correspondence. However, I can give him the assurance that it will be independent—that is important—and that independence will derive from it having complete control over the forecasts it will produce. I was grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, saw that that was a positive step. On the detailed questions, as I said, I shall write to the noble Lord.

Turning to the deficit, the subject most mentioned by noble Lords—indeed, so many noble Lords raised the subject that I cannot list all their names—there were varied views on what to do about it but everyone accepted that it had to be tackled. Even the noble Lord, Lord Myners, accepted that the deficit had to be tackled but felt, as did others—but by no means the majority—that it should not be tackled too quickly. I shall quote the views of the Governor of the Bank of England on this subject. He said:

“The bigger risk at present would be for a new Government not to put in place clear and credible measures to deal with the deficit”.

We are currently running one of the largest deficits in the world. That is simply not sustainable and the longer we delay action the greater the risk of a loss of market confidence, which would mean higher interest rates for all.

I will give way to the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, just this once, but it is his third intervention in the course of the debate.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

It is an important question. Perhaps the Minister could write to me and put his reply in the Library. Is he talking about the complete deficit or about a recession-adjusted deficit? How has it suddenly become a recession-related deficit of 11.1 per cent when it was only 2.5 per cent 18 months ago?

[Lord Henley]

That is a question that the noble Lord will have to put to the previous Government, who saw it rise to that level. I shall of course write to him in due course and, as I always do, put a copy of the letter in the Library.

The longer that we delay action on the deficit, the greater is the risk of that loss of market confidence. As I said, that would mean higher interest rates for all, stifling recovery and making challenges ahead even harder.