Levelling Up
Debate between Lord Liddle and Baroness Penn(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
The noble Lord has pointed to one of the solutions in his question. In some circumstances, it might be appropriate for government to provide support to those councils or areas that struggle the most with the process to give them the capacity to engage with it in the first place. However, there are also things that we can do to try to simplify the processes that local authorities go through, while still ensuring that quality is maintained. We can simplify them—or, for example, in our approach to monitoring and evaluation of a lot of these projects, we have taken the decision to remove the local obligation to undertake that and will provide a central function to do it. So we can provide central support for local government and we can provide direct funding to local government to be able to engage and participate, but we can also simplify the process to try to remove the costs and drive value for money.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
I am so glad to see the noble Baroness in her new place. Do the Government agree with the analysis of Andrew Haldane, the former chief economist of the Bank of England and now director-general of the Royal Society of Arts, that one reason why Britain’s growth and productivity performance is not as good as it should be is the widening regional differentials in England between London and the south-east and the city regions of the north? If the Minister does agree, what conclusions does she draw about what kinds of policies are likely to be most effective in closing that gap?
To speak personally, when I look at quite a lot of the projects that have been approved, they are smallish-scale projects worth £10 million to £20 million, a lot of which are designed to improve town centres. I am in favour of repurposing town centres, but I do not think that we can ever take them back to where they were. Should we not be looking for big, transformative projects? Of course, that is why the cancellation of HS2 was such a big blow.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I agree with that central point: that is what is driving the whole mission behind our work to level up. We need to do both of the things that the noble Lord talked about. We need to fund projects that restore pride of place to towns where people live and give a strong sense of local community, but we also need to fund those larger-scale transformative projects. The amount of funding, for example, that has gone into transport projects in mayoral combined authorities and other areas over recent years is very significant. We also have projects to develop investment zones and freeports, for example. So we should not see the levelling-up fund, and the projects that take place through that, as the only way in which we are delivering our agenda.
On the point about funding, whether it is for large or small projects, I will just add that it is also about devolving power—something that the noble Baroness mentioned at the very outset. Today, in the Autumn Statement, we have confirmed four new devolution deals for Greater Lincolnshire, Hull and East Yorkshire, Cornwall and Lancashire. We are also deepening the settlements for our existing institutions, because we need both power and money to flow down to local areas so that they can level up.
Financial Markets: Stability
Debate between Lord Liddle and Baroness Penn(2 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, HM Treasury (Baroness Penn) (Con)
My Lords, I join all noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, for the opportunity to debate this important topic.
The central responsibility of any Government is to protect national security, and an essential pillar of that security is economic stability. That economic security and stability has real and profound impacts on people’s lives, as we have heard in today’s debate, from pensions and savings to mortgage costs and the broader cost of living.
The Motion that we are debating today speaks of the importance of stability in financial markets, and I agree with all noble Lords on the desirability of this. However, it is also important to recognise that many of those factors influencing stability can be beyond our control. There are global forces that can create volatility in the financial markets, as we saw in the past with the global financial crisis and more recently with the shocks of the global pandemic and the energy shock in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The role of government and the regulators is to ensure that we have a system that is resilient to those shocks. Since the financial crisis in 2008, that is what we have sought to build.
We created a new Financial Policy Committee to look at risks across our financial system, backed by the powers to tackle them. On the question the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asked about whether the Treasury will take a view on financial stability risks in addition to the Financial Policy Committee, the Government remain committed to the Bank of England’s independence, so it is right that the FPC can independently assess the level of resilience required to promote UK financial stability.
We have also developed the UK resolution regime, which provides the financial authorities with powers to manage the failure of financial institutions in a way that protects depositors and maintains financial stability, while limiting the risks to public funds. We have implemented regulations to strengthen the resilience of the banking system, with the major UK banks now reporting core capital ratios three times higher than before the global financial crisis. There has also been a concerted international effort to strengthen the financial system and ensure that the authorities have the necessary tools in place to protect financial stability.
Recognising in particular the significance of the non-bank sector, over the last decade the Government and UK regulators have worked closely with our international partners through the Financial Stability Board to identify vulnerabilities and enhance the sector’s resilience. It is important to pursue this work through international fora due to the global nature of the financial system, and the Government, the Bank of England and UK regulators play an active role in this work. As a result, the system is much more resilient today than it was in 2008.
However, alongside the UK’s independent financial regulators, we continue to closely monitor any developments that could be relevant to UK financial stability. The Treasury, the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority have well-established and mature systems for monitoring the health of our financial services firms and responding when incidents occur. We are also committed to maintaining and enhancing the UK’s position as a global financial services hub.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, questioned what the financial sector delivers for the United Kingdom. She will probably be familiar with the statistics that financial and related professional services employ more than 2.3 million people across the UK, creating £1 in every £10 of the UK’s economic output and contributing nearly £100 billion in taxes to help fund vital public services. We plan to continue to strengthen that sector through the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which is currently in Committee in the House of Commons. We are all—
Lord Liddle (Lab)
The Minister has stressed, rightly, the importance to the prosperity of the City of London of financial regulation, and of a stable financial regulatory regime, which I certainly support. However, the Government are talking about taking powers to overrule regulators. Can the Minister confirm whether or not these powers will be included in the Bill when it gets to this House? Can she tell us how she thinks that will contribute to the independence and stability of the regime, which is so fundamental, as she admits?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I cannot confirm that, but I am sure that when that Bill comes to this House, we will spend sufficient time scrutinising its provisions and ensuring that they deliver the outcome that we all want—a stronger financial services sector—which is important not just for the City of London but for people’s everyday lives in the country.
Economy Update
Debate between Lord Liddle and Baroness Penn
Baroness Penn (Con)
I do not think that is necessarily the case because in the specific circumstances that we are talking about, energy companies have benefited not from greater efficiency in their operations or profitability due to their own efforts, but due to global circumstances. I think that my noble friend and I disagree on green levies and net zero. Actually, our investment in renewable energy has reduced the impact of the current crisis on people’s bills.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
I welcome this package, although it is belated, and I welcome its focus on lower-income people, with this exception that it is a universal payment to pensioners, including pensioners who pay 40%— and more—rates of tax, as I am sure is the case with many Members of this House, including me. Do the Government think they are doing enough for poor, working families with children? To give an example, I heard on the radio last week about the impact of inflation on the school meals budget, and how schools are having to reduce the content of food because of the squeeze of inflation on those budgets. Is that not something that the Government should have addressed as a priority, to make sure that children from poor families get at least one decent meal a day?
Baroness Penn (Con)
In ensuring that children get decent meals, we have extended free school meals, and we have the holiday support programme that ensures that this is not just during term-time. On the noble Lord’s question about support to pensioners versus families with children, there is a greater deal of support going to those on low incomes, and we have made this a target. There is also a universal payment and a payment for pensioners who are less able to meet rising energy costs. Pension credit take-up in not where I think anyone in this House would want it to be, and simply targeting pension support through pension credit is not necessarily going to reach everyone we need to. We have to have a balance between universal support that ensures that no one slips through the net, and better targeted support that ensures that those who need it most, get the most support. I think we have done that quite carefully in this package and got it right this time.
Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme: BAME Communities
Debate between Lord Liddle and Baroness Penn
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, it is because the Government completely understand that some of the most vulnerable in our society might be hit hardest by this pandemic in terms of both their health outcomes and their livelihood that we have put unprecedented support into supporting people’s livelihoods. We are continuing the job support scheme and we said on Friday how that will help to support those in businesses that may need to close down as a consequence of further restrictions imposed to help get the virus under control.
Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]
My Lords, in the Minister’s replies I hear no hint of any new action to tackle this great injustice. Do the Government not accept that this is disappointing, given that Covid strikes hardest where inequalities are greatest, that one of the greatest drivers of inequalities is rising unemployment and that the BAME community has suffered most of all from this?
Baroness Penn (Con)
Well, what I am trying to say to noble Lords is that the Government have been aware of this fact since the beginning of the crisis and it has informed our response so far—so, instead of trying to retrofit our response in the light of this information, it has driven our response. The noble Lord said that the Government are not taking any new action in response to this. New action was announced on Friday and I am updating the House on it today. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will report by the end of the year on employment, which is one of the themes it is looking at.