Financial Services: Mansion House Speech

Debate between Lord Livermore and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Thursday 21st November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for the question. I do remember the conversations we had in the past and I am, of course, happy to continue to discuss these issues with my noble friend. He talks about partnership; it is a key part of our investment plans. Partnership between public and private investment is key to our national wealth fund, with our public sector investment leveraging greater amounts of private sector investment into exactly the kind of green technologies that my noble friend references. I understand and sympathise with the spirit behind his question, and I am very happy to continue discussions with him on that point.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his welcome; I too look forward to a constructive relationship in the traditions of the House. Can he comment on my point about gilt yields? My concern is their impact on compliance with the Chancellor’s fiscal rules. There has been a worrying increase of about 0.5% in the gilt yields, and I was interested in his reflections—perhaps in writing—on that.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is kind enough to give me the opportunity to write, and I will happily do so.

United Kingdom Declining Birth Rate

Debate between Lord Livermore and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

My noble friend makes some very interesting points. I assure him that the Treasury is working closely with the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology to advance the things that he mentions.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, we have just had a Budget which the OBR says will lead to a loss of jobs and the first ever taxes on education. What does this do for family life and for the birth rate in the shorter term?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

To clarify, the OBR is very clear that, over the next five years, employment will grow by 1.2 million people.

Working From Home: Public Sector Productivity

Debate between Lord Livermore and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am not sure I am going to be able to answer that right now, but, as set out by the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, in his investigation into the state of the NHS, productivity in the NHS has fallen significantly and is far too low. Improving productivity in the NHS is a key priority. What the noble Lord said about management was really interesting. Emerging studies show that, where workforces are well managed, productivity can rise with working from home. This is a point that the noble Lord who asked the original Question raised in a previous debate on this subject, which I read: the quality of management has a key impact on productivity when working from home.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, although good management certainly makes a difference, there is strong evidence from academic studies that working from home reduces productivity—although there are other benefits. So far, this Government have been coy about publishing office attendance figures for government departments, as we used to do. Will the Minister ensure that the publication of such figures is restarted and that working from home is limited to those areas where efficiency is not compromised?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

This Government have exactly the same policy in terms of civil servants working from home as the last Government: civil servants should be in the office for a minimum of 60% of the time. That is unchanged and those figures will of course be published in exactly the same way. The noble Baroness said that working from home reduced productivity: that is not actually the case, according to many studies. I read one from the IMF recently that said that the positive and negative effects of working from home roughly offset each other, generating no net productivity impact.