Queen’s Speech

Lord Livingston of Parkhead Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Lords Chamber

“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Livingston of Parkhead) (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to open this debate on Her Majesty’s gracious Speech. We will be considering the Government’s priorities for business, employment, pensions, welfare, agriculture and the environment for the year ahead. The Government are committed to fostering and assisting the entrepreneurial spirit which thrives in the UK today. The measures in Her Majesty’s gracious Speech will open up new opportunities for businesses to innovate, compete, grow and, of course, to export.

The Government plan to introduce a small business, enterprise and employment Bill. This will contain a number of specific measures to better ensure a business environment that is supportive of small businesses, as well as further enterprise and employment measures. There has never been a better time to start, grow and operate a small business in the UK. Small businesses, as noble Lords know, make a huge contribution to the UK, accounting for around half of jobs in the UK and a third of private sector turnover.

In December last year, the Government published Small Business: GREAT Ambition, which set out our commitment to make it easier for small firms to establish and grow in the UK. The small business, enterprise and employment Bill will help deliver on that commitment and will further enhance it. Furthermore, the Bill will ensure that the UK continues to be recognised globally as a trusted and fair place to do business. It will deliver on the UK’s G8 commitment to introduce new rules requiring companies to obtain and hold information on who owns and controls them, which will encourage trust and growth within the UK.

The Bill will make it easier for small businesses to access finance. It will help improve payment practices between small businesses and their customers, particularly through greater transparency. It will provide small firms with better access to the £230 billion spent each year in public procurement contracts. The Bill will also aim to cut red tape by ensuring that there are frequent reviews of regulations which impact on business in particular.

The changes proposed to UK Export Finance’s powers will make it easier for small businesses to access export finance, which they so often need. The Bill will widen the powers of UK Export Finance, enabling it to support exporters itself, rather than, as is currently the case, only in relation to specific export contracts. UKEF will also have more flexibility when providing support for small businesses, such as instances where they are part of a wider and larger supply chain. The Bill will also enable UKEF to support exports of intellectual property rights and other intangibles. All this means that UKEF will be able to increase the number of small companies it can help.

The Bill will also introduce a number of measures to reduce unfairness. There will be tougher rules to make sure that public sector workers do not get high payouts if they are re-employed in the public sector. It will tackle misconduct by directors and unfair employment practices and will provide reforms to increase the efficiency of the employment tribunals system and further reduce its burden on businesses. It will increase the penalty for failure to adhere to the national minimum wage and prevent abuses of zero-hours contracts. Honest, hard-working businesses can be more confident that they will not be disadvantaged by those who do not play by the rules.

The Government are already playing a key role in supporting the success of small businesses. Last year alone almost 500,000 new businesses were created in the UK, a testament to the business environment that we have created. The measures outlined will help them prosper in a UK that prides itself on being very much open for business.

The Government’s long-term economic plan is working. We are seeing more people in work than ever before and unemployment is falling rapidly. To confound our detractors, it is the private sector that is providing these jobs, the number rising by more than 1.7 million since the general election. Government should be about creating the right environment for jobs, not about being the employer. We are committed to building on this outstanding progress and continuing our work to reduce long-term and youth unemployment.

The Work Programme is growing and transforming lives. Nearly 250,000 people have been helped into lasting jobs, but we are determined to improve the results still further. We are rewarding better performing providers and expecting weaker providers to improve. Nearly 200,000 young people have benefited from our work experience and pre-employment training. We are trialling new types of help for young people, including intensive support for 16 to 17 year-old NEETs—that is, those not in employment, education or training, and not in receipt of benefits.

We are piloting new day-one help for unemployed 18 to 21 year-olds to help improve their maths and English skills and thereby their employability. We are requiring some young people to undertake work-related activities at the six-month point of their claim. We are committed to supporting young people to expand their skills and long-term employment opportunities through apprenticeships and newly introduced traineeships. At the same time, the Government are delivering the biggest welfare reforms in 60 years. The Government have brought in universal credit, personal independence payments and the new Child Maintenance Service, alongside employment initiatives such as the Work Programme, Help to Work and Disability Confident.

We have capped benefits so that households no longer receive more in out-of-work benefits than average earnings. At the same time we have delivered employment programmes that have seen record numbers of people in work. We are delivering programmes that make work pay, encourage personal responsibility and deliver a fairer deal for the taxpayer.

In the past, welfare spending was not subject to firm controls and we saw the benefit bill rising under the last Government, even at a time of economic growth. We are determined to ensure that this does not happen again. The Government have already taken significant action since 2010 to bring welfare costs under control. To build on this programme, we have for the first time introduced a welfare cap that will bring over £100 billion of welfare spending under control. This cap will ensure that welfare spending remains on a sustainable footing for the future.

On pensions, we want very much to build on our achievements so far. Around 12 million people are not saving sufficiently to achieve their desired level of income in retirement, especially given—we hope—longer life expectancy. It is therefore vital that we ensure that there are high-quality, value-for-money pension schemes to encourage people to save sufficiently.

We have already made significant pension reforms: the new single-tier state pension from April 2016; automatic enrolment which will see millions more savers joining pension schemes; capping charges on default funds in defined contribution schemes; and setting minimum quality standards to ensure that savers get value for money. However, we are planning to do more still. Defined benefit schemes, where the employer bears all the risk and the employee is promised a specified pension, are, of course, in decline. On the other hand, defined contribution schemes, which are more flexible for employers but have no promise for the employee, are on the rise.

The best employers, of course, still want to offer good pensions, and for some, defined benefit or defined contribution schemes may still be the right pension arrangement. However, for those who want an alternative, our pensions Bill will allow a greater range of options. It will give employers and pension providers the opportunity to create defined ambition pensions, which will encourage greater risk-sharing between parties and allow savers to have greater certainty about their pensions. The Bill will also allow for new collective pensions, recognised in many countries as providing high quality, and enjoying support across the political spectrum.

The Budget announcement on new flexibilities in how savers can access their defined contribution pensions has been warmly welcomed. A Treasury consultation on this, named Freedom and Choice in Pensions, is due to close very shortly. The necessary changes to the tax regime will be via a Finance Bill later in the year. Those with a defined contribution pension will be offered free and impartial guidance on the options available to them at retirement. We will implement related measures through the pensions Bill.

I turn to environmental matters. The Government will publish a draft national parks Bill, which will enable the composition of national parks authorities and the Broads Authority to be widened in future, by an order of the Secretary of State. The main purpose of the draft Bill will be to provide for holding local elections to the authorities to improve local accountability.

We are also committed to reducing the use of plastic bags to help to protect the environment. Discarded plastic bags blight our towns and countryside; they are a waste of resource and a very visible form of littering, and can cause injury to marine wildlife and harm the marine environment. Over 7 billion single-use plastic carrier bags were given out in England by supermarkets alone in 2012; that is 133 bags per person. I am sure that noble Lords will consider that next time they stand in a Tesco self-service queue and they are asked the question, “Are you using your own bag?”. I hope that the answer will be yes, next time. In October 2015, the Government intend to introduce a 5p charge on all single-use plastic carrier bags in England. In another measure, the Government will allow for species control orders to control the invasive, non-native species that pose serious threats to biodiversity.

The measures in Her Majesty’s gracious Speech will help make the UK the most attractive place to start, finance and grow a business. The Government’s pension reforms will allow for innovation and give greater control to employees, and the Government will introduce measures to help protect the environment. I am most grateful for the opportunity to introduce this part of the debate on Her Majesty’s gracious Speech and I look forward to listening to the contributions to the debate from all around the House. I know that I speak for the whole House in saying how much we look forward to hearing in particular from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham and my noble friend Lord Bamford, who will make their maiden speeches today. They have contributed much to the spiritual and economic welfare of this country.