UK Population Growth

Debate between Lord Moylan and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Monday 4th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the recent forecast by the Office for National Statistics that between 2021 and 2036 the UK population will grow by 9.9 per cent, to 73.7 million persons.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK population is projected to increase by 6.6 million, or 9.9%, by mid-2036. Of the total projected increase, 0.5 million is projected to result from the higher number of births than deaths, and 6.1 million from net international migration. The projections make no attempt to account for the impact of future policy on population movements or behaviours.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, as my noble friend confirms, over 92% of the projected increase is expected to arise from net migration and is therefore a political choice. The answer I was rather hoping for from my noble friend was that the Government would take steps in terms of policy to ensure that that figure did not, in fact, eventuate, or at least would be permitted to do so only after the most careful consultation with public opinion, and after preparation of a robust plan for providing the infrastructure and housing necessary to sustain it. Would my noble friend like to have another go and see whether she can force words along those lines through her lips?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

The Government have made it quite clear that the most recent immigration figures are much too high, and that of course causes problems of the kind that my noble friend has suggested in areas such as housing. However, we have taken actions that are expected to lead to a significant fall in the number of dependants, and from tightening financial requirements—a fall of about 300,000 on last year’s figures. Some come in in January, some in March and some in April. When they fully take effect on the ONS figures—which will not be until the end of the year, at the earliest—we can of course take another look.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Moylan and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Committee stage
Monday 11th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister has a difficulty with his throat, and I commiserate with him on that. He also has a difficulty with the Bill. He wants to have a Bill which is highly prescriptive, but his answer to those who wish to amend it is that that would make it too prescriptive. The question is: what are the bounds of prescription, and has he given an adequate defence of them? It may be the heat, but I suspect we are condemned this afternoon to receiving a series of responses from Ministers which are not as adequate and embracing of our original ideas as one might hope.

It has been a very important debate because it is about the principles underlying the Bill. My noble friend said that there was a degree of confusion and contradiction in the debate. There is often confusion in debate when you have a broad range and number of topics to discuss, but I do not think there was any contradiction if one understands that the debate on principles has been taking place on two levels. The first is about what the principles should be—whether they should involve what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, has suggested should be incorporated and whether they should involve a certain interpretation of value for money. We all agree that has to be an element of it, but what does that actually mean? That has been the tenor of part of the debate. I have said that I intend to remain neutral in a sense on that question.

The second level on which we have been debating the principles is: on the assumption that we can agree what the principles are, what role do they then play? What purchase or leverage do they give in the procurement process? In particular, should they be a basis on which disappointed contractors should be able to nitpick through this procedural Bill in order to bring complaints when, in my view, it would be better if they were limited to doing that only if the broad principles of the Bill—which we might have agreed on—had been breached? The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, clearly grasped that point, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, heartily agreed that we should ensure that there is a degree of flexibility in the tendering process so that unforeseen circumstances that lead to idiotic outcomes can be handled in a sensible way.

My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe made a similar point, but I am going to quibble with her very slightly, because she used the word “frequent” in reference to frequent legal challenges to procurement processes. In my experience, they are not very frequent, because what happens is that precise attention to the detail of the process is often prioritised over sensible outcomes in order to avoid those legal challenges in the first place. The structure of the approach that we are taking often leads to poor outcomes in procurement terms precisely to avoid legal challenges, but we congratulate ourselves on having gone through a successful procurement even though we have a suit with a pair of trousers with one leg shorter than the other, or something like that.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

On the business of frequent challenge, I think it would be quite useful to have some information before we discuss this again. My experience—I have worked in the industry, although admittedly not as an executive—is that there are quite a lot of challenges, and they absorb a lot of resources. However, if they are rare, that is important as well.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I heartily second that call for information.

To conclude, my noble friend the Minister said that he thought that flexibility in response to the sort of circumstance that I am describing is desirable. To that extent, he agreed in principle with me and with my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, and it is for him, as we go forward, to show how he intends to instantiate that in his own amendments, so as to give us that sensible, practical outcome. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Moylan and Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Committee stage
Monday 4th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I hesitate to appear to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Berkely, but I shall humiliate myself by doing so. I venture to suggest that there is a definition of a “private utility” in Clause 5. It is only to be understood in its fullness if read with Schedule 4, at page 84, which specifies what “utility activities” are. If one looks at Clause 5 and Schedule 4, one can see what the Government are trying to do. However, I am not sure that what the Government are trying to do is worth while or appropriate. To that extent, I support the comments of my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe.

The background is that we are starting from an EU procurement directive that applied to the whole single market of 27 states, and which needed to take account of the fact that most utility activities in most of those states are effectively provided by arms of the state, whereas in the UK we have blazed a successful path of privatisation, so many utility activities that in other parts of the single market are carried out by the state are carried out here by private companies. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, makes a very important point when he says that those private companies are, in nearly all instances, subject to some form of regulation.

Before I go further, I draw attention to Schedule 4, which specifies those activities. The subheadings, which I know are not technically part of the Bill, include “Gas and heat”, “Electricity”—

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I think electricity is later taken out, as I mentioned.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

Oh well. I shall just work on the text I have; I mean, what is one meant to do? There is “Water” and “Transport”. “Ports and airports” and “Extraction of oil and gas” are also mentioned, but it is the first few that matter. It is striking that the rollout of broadband, the internet and such things do not count as a utility; I should have thought that they were characteristically examples of a utility. My noble friend will no doubt be able to give me a compelling rationale why they are not included.

I come back to the point I made a moment ago about the regulator. I read out the subheadings because noble Lords can see that the activities we are discussing are nearly all regulated, funded by the commitment of private capital with an assumption that private capital will be reasonably efficient in procurement, even if simply for the benefit of shareholders. This does not preclude defalcation, fraud, bribery or giving contracts to your best mate but, as I explained at Second Reading, the Bill does not deal with those issues. If they arose, be it in a public authority or a private company, they would be dealt with through the criminal law because they are all criminal offences. One would not pursue them for a trivial breach of a procedural requirement under the Bill; one would go after them for fraud, taking bribes or all these other criminal things, which are nothing to do with the Bill.

All that makes me think that including private utilities is not entirely appropriate. If it were felt that procurement undertaken by private utilities needed some form of statutory control it would be better in a separate Bill that actually focused on the principles, rather than the procedure, allowing private companies to pursue those procedures appropriate to achieving their shareholders’ ends, just as we allow Tesco to do—with the exception of selling cars next door to fruit. I cannot contemplate for a moment why the European Union should take exception to that, but apparently it did. Essentially, we leave Tesco to decide what procurement processes to follow because it is a private company risking private capital. That is the essential ground on which I make my point.

Finally, I turn to transport, because I have more direct experience of it as a utility than I do the others. There are some distinctions to be drawn. I take as an example Transport for London; as noble Lords may know, I served on the board. Transport for London perhaps should be subject to procurement regulations of this character, but Transport for London is in part categorised as a local government body. It is covered by some local government legislation, as well as by its own Act. That might be the rationale for including a body such as Transport for London, or some of its equivalent bodies that have been created around the country.