Economy: Productivity Measurement

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Haskel

Thursday 28th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to modernise the way productivity is measured in the economy.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the independent Office for National Statistics measures productivity and has increased the volume and timeliness of productivity data, which can now be accessed by region, with detailed breakdowns of region by industry. We are the only country in the world to produce quarterly, rather than annual, multifactor productivity reports, which take account of capital. We now also have the UK’s first official estimates of aggregate infrastructure and intangible assets, such as research and development.

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that reply. However, it is not the quantum of data that we need but up-to-date data. The Government’s industrial strategy—if noble Lords remember that—is directed towards raising our productivity by developing the so-called intangible economy and the digital economy. Yet the way we measure productivity is still biased towards traditional industry. It is the same with GDP. As they say, what gets measured gets done. Will the Government show some urgency and speed up, encourage, publicise and conclude the work of modernising these measurements so that we may get a better understanding of exactly what is going on in our economy today?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord has a long-standing interest in productivity data, perhaps inspired by the book Capitalism Without Capital by Professor Jonathan Haskel, with whom he has a relationship that is statistically significant. The noble Lord is quite right that intangible assets such as software, research and development and intellectual capital are now just as important as tangible assets. In fact, the annual investment in each is about the same. The ONS regularly engages with leading academics and government departments to ensure that its work meets their needs; there is an annual productivity user forum. Over the next two years, the ONS is investing in improving information, particularly on public service productivity, and I will ensure that it takes the noble Lord’s injunctions on board tomorrow morning.

Interserve: Provision of Public Services

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Haskel

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of Interserve’s financial situation and the impact this may have on the provision of public services.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the funding arrangements of Interserve are the responsibility of the company and its directors. The Cabinet Office has regular discussions with the company’s management and monitors the financial health of all government strategic suppliers. The company successfully raised new debt facilities earlier this year and plans further restructuring to strengthen its balance sheet and financial robustness.

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his reply, but the monitoring does not seem to work, because this is happening too many times. As well as infrastructure, Interserve does welfare to work, probation, home care and hospital work—all important services—yet because of its financial structure, like many other public service companies, it has become a speculative vehicle for hedge funds and private equity. How will the Government rectify that? Will they give it more work to keep it afloat or sink it by taking the work away? How will they ensure that these essential services continue?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

As I said, the Government are in regular contact with Interserve to monitor its performance. Not only does the Cabinet Office have overall responsibility for monitoring the health of the company, but individual government departments that have contracts with Interserve have a dialogue with it about those specific contracts. The noble Lord may have seen the statement which the Cabinet Office issued a few days ago:

“The Cabinet Office has expressed full support for the work the company is doing to implement”,


its “long-term recovery plan”. It is worth making the point that Interserve is very different from Carillion. Interserve is now taking the action that Carillion ought to have taken—to restructure its balance sheet and improve its robustness—and, unlike Carillion, it does not need new money. It needs to turn debt into equity. It is not accurate to make a direct comparison between the two companies.

Cyberattacks

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Haskel

Wednesday 21st November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to protect the United Kingdom’s critical infrastructure from cyberattacks.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, ensuring that our critical national infrastructure—CNI—is secure and resilient against cyberattack is at the heart of our 2016 national cybersecurity strategy. The National Cyber Security Centre we established has improved our understanding of the threat and provided a unified source of advice and support. We have also strengthened regulatory frameworks across much of the CNI to ensure that cyber risk is managed in the national interest.

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

I hear what the Minister says, but I do not think he will satisfy the committee. It defined the Government’s current position as,

“long on aspiration and short on delivery”.

It says that the Government have failed to match the increasing threat with improved cyber resilience in both the public and private sectors and that it finds a lack of expertise to provide credible insurance. It would like to see a Minister appointed to ensure that there is capacity. Putting this right will require a lot more than money and good intentions. Will the Government take steps to carry out the report’s proposals?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord will be aware that this is a substantial report published two days ago by the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, with 22 senior Members of both Houses. It has 10 major recommendations and the Government will want to respond to those in due course. The noble Lord quoted a little from the report and, just to add some balance, may I also quote from it? It said:

“Many of those who submitted written evidence … welcomed the step change in Government approach in the 2016 NCSS, with some describing the strategy—and the activity it underpins—as world-leading. This appears to be borne out by the notable level of international interest in the UK’s approach to cyber security”.


That gives a somewhat more balanced response than what the noble Lord quoted. There are many recommendations. One is that there should be one Minister; the committee wants what it calls a collective mind—a somewhat Orwellian concept. If we look at the building blocks of national security, we have GCHQ, which is under the Foreign Office; the Home Office, with overall responsibility for protecting the citizen if there is a cyberattack; the Ministry of Defence, which is in charge of offensive cybersecurity; and the Cabinet Office, which is in charge of CNI. It is very difficult to have a collective mind. What is important is having a collective strategy that all the Government agree to, underpinned by substantial resources and supervised by the National Security Council, chaired by the Prime Minister. That is more important than having what the committee calls a collective mind.

Elections: Personal Data

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Haskel

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to prevent possible abuse of the United Kingdom’s electoral system following the evidence given by Mark Zuckerberg to the United States Senate on 10 April.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Government take the security and integrity of our democratic processes very seriously. We have measures in place to protect elections from undue interference, both on and offline. We talk regularly with the major tech companies about a range of safety and security issues; we work closely to support those responsible for overseeing and delivering our elections; and we keep the need for legislation under review.

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

My Lords, I hear what the Minister says, but are the Government listening to the obvious concern from all over that our political integrity is under threat? If the Government were listening, surely our institutions would already have caught up with the much stronger powers of enforcement and regulation such as those of the Financial Conduct Authority, the regulations in place regarding the press, TV and radio or the powers to break up market dominance that we have in other sectors? Will the Government start catching up now?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord will know that the Data Protection Bill is at the moment in another place, having passed through your Lordships’ House. That Bill gives extra powers to the Information Commissioner to safeguard the integrity of our democratic process, as he indicated. For example, once the legislation is on the statute book, the maximum fine for an organisation such as Facebook would rise to £1 billion. New criminal offences are being created and the Information Commissioner is being given extra powers. As I said a moment ago, there is a dialogue with the Information Commissioner and if at any point she feels that she needs additional powers, over and above those in the current legislation, we are more than ready to consider them.

Tax Credits: Concentrix

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Haskel

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to my noble friend for her welcome and I miss sitting next to her in this House. The WFTC is a complex system and in the Statement and response that my honourable friend gave in the other place, she referred to the complexity. As I said in response to an earlier question, all these cases will over a period of time—some six or seven years—be migrating to universal credits. We hope to learn from the complexity to which my noble friend referred in devising a better system than the one we have.

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

The Minister spoke of 150 staff being taken on to do this work. Will new staff be taken on or will existing HMRC staff be stretched still further?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The answer is the latter but I would not use precisely those words. I would say that HMRC may have to reorder its priorities to cope with this additional responsibility.

Pension Protection Fund

Debate between Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Haskel

Tuesday 13th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Government recognise the importance of proper pension protection and are confident that the Pension Protection Fund will be able to make compensation payments now and in future. It has more than £23 billion worth of assets under management and a reserve of more than £4 billion. It is 116% funded; that is, it has 16% more money than it estimates it needs. That puts it in a strong position to face the future.

[Lord Haskel (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box for his first Question. Bearing in mind the numbers he gave us, and also that the current BHS episode affects 20,000 people, and the recent warning from PwC that our defined pension schemes have a total deficit of £710 billion, are the Government satisfied that the current regulation is good enough to prevent poorly run schemes having to be bailed out by well-run schemes, which is the whole purpose of the protection fund?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his welcome. I think my career is on a downward spiral rather than an upward one. On British Home Stores, that pension scheme is now in the assessment period so far as the PPF is concerned. It is confident that, should BHS fall into the PPF, it has the resources to meet those obligations. On the very substantial figure that the noble Lord mentioned, that is a snapshot of all the liabilities of the defined benefit pension schemes were they all to have to buy annuities at the present moment. Of course, that is a volatile figure. When interest rates go down, the deficit goes up; should interest rates go up, the deficit would go down and in many cases disappear. One must look at this in the long term, with the volatility of the economic cycle taken into account. A pension fund is, after all, a long-term investment.