UK Infrastructure: 10-year Strategy

Debate between Viscount Stansgate and Lord Livermore

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I can definitely say yes to one of the noble Lord’s questions, which I am pleased to be able to do. He talked about making sure that this investment is not cut back according to the economic weather, as it were. I completely agree with what he said about how previous Governments did that. That is why the fiscal rules are as they are. That creates the space to ensure that capital investment can continue and is not used to patch up day-to-day spending. That is important for us to appreciate.

The noble Lord is absolutely right that there has been too little investment in transport infrastructure in the past. We have talked before in debates such as this about the importance of connectivity to economic growth and the agglomeration effects that you get from joining up cities with each other, and joining up towns to cities. This ensures that people can live close to where they want to work and can travel to work and, on the skills conversation we have just been having, gets skills into the right place. There are huge growth benefits from transport spending. Some of the money that we are putting in—£15.6 billion into the city regions, £2.3 billion for the local transport grant and £2.2 billion of funding for Transport for London—is vital to what we were just saying. On the percentage of GDP, I do not have that number to hand, but I will write to the noble Lord.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government’s 10-year infrastructure strategy, and the industrial strategy published yesterday, are essential for future growth. If I had to single out one item in the 10-year strategy, it would be to develop our sovereign compute capacity for the future. I am a member of the Science and Technology Committee of your Lordships’ House, which is looking right now at the problems of scaling up science and technology companies. Can my noble friend the Minister assure the House that the National Wealth Fund will be able to provide vital early-stage development support for companies, because we want them to scale up in Britain for the benefit of Britain?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful for what my noble friend said. I share his enthusiasm for what we are doing in the innovation landscape, such as putting a record high of £22.6 billion into R&D as part of the spending review. It is exciting that yesterday the industrial strategy talked about allocating £2 billion for AI and £2.8 billion for advanced manufacturing. This is all incredibly important.

What my noble friend said is absolutely part of what the National Wealth Fund is for. My noble friend talked about start-ups and scale-ups. The British Business Bank now has a total financial capacity of £25.6 billion, which will result in a two-thirds increase in support for innovative UK businesses compared with 2025-26, crowding in tens of billions of pounds more in private capital The National Wealth Fund will play that role, but so too will the British Business Bank. That was one of the key announcements in yesterday’s industrial strategy.

Spring Statement

Debate between Viscount Stansgate and Lord Livermore

Thursday 27th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Viscount; he has far greater expertise in these matters than I do. The Secretary of State, when she presented the package of reforms to Parliament, said that the costings that she was setting out were subject to final costings by the OBR. The OBR has now set out its final assessment of costings and confirmed that this welfare package will reduce welfare spending by £4.8 billion in 2029-30. Following the OBR’s final assessment of the welfare savings from the package, taking account of the £1.4 billion of investment the Government are putting towards the reforms, including the £1 billion of employment support, the net welfare savings of this investment is around £3.4 billion.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

Can my noble friend confirm that the Statement’s provision for capital spending is crucial if the UK is to sustain and safeguard its research and development budget and infrastructure, such as data centres, that will be vital for future growth? Does he agree that we will need a combination of our world-class universities, entrepreneurs, emerging AI companies and others not only to start up but to scale up businesses in this country? As your Lordships’ House’s Science and Technology Committee is now investigating, it is the scale-up that is the real challenge.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

My noble friend is right. The Autumn Budget increased capital investment by £100 billion over the Parliament, including investment to protect record R&D funding, which, as my noble friend said, is vital for growth. The OBR has looked at the growth impact of that investment across a decade and it has been clear that those capital investments—which, incidentally, the party opposite opposed—will lead to a significant 0.4% increase in growth over the longer term. Not cutting capital spending, which the party opposite did time and again, was one of the most significant growth measures that the Chancellor outlined in her Statement.

My noble friend also talked about start-ups and scale-ups. He knows that I agree with him 100% on that. This country is extremely good at start-up; it is much less good at scale-up. Getting the necessary capital to those scale-ups is one of the most important things that we can do.

Growing the UK Economy

Debate between Viscount Stansgate and Lord Livermore

Monday 3rd February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord. As he stood up, I was reminded that he contacted me last week on this point and I owe him a response. I apologise to him for not having got back to him quickly enough. What he said dovetails perfectly with what the Chancellor said in her speech. Clearly, the Cambridge Growth Company has been very successful under the leadership of Peter Freeman. We have now set up a growth commission for Oxford to review the barriers to growth that are holding the city back from reaching its full potential. At the moment, that is a specific team within MHCLG, but it has the potential to grow into something similar to what is happening in Cambridge. I do not think we would see any problem in that happening and developing in that way. What the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, is doing is complementary to that in terms of joining it up.

The whole point of the growth corridor is that we do not see it as two separate cities doing their own thing but instead join them up and see the benefits. People talk about it being Europe’s equivalent of Silicon Valley. All the business reaction post the announcement has been incredibly positive in terms of what it can do and the benefits that it can achieve in attracting businesses into the area. The big problem businesses have is a lack of affordable housing and fast transport to move people about within that region. We are looking to address both of those things. I think we will be very supportive of what the noble Lord says about Oxford.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Chancellor’s speech and the positive statement of intent that it conveys. I put it to my noble friend that one key ingredient is investment in science and technology. I draw the Minister’s attention to one example. We know that we have strengths in the life sciences. A recent report by your Lordships’ Science and Technology Committee, of which I am a member, on engineering biology, indicated an enormous new range of potential growth opportunities. When the Minister and his noble friend Lord Vallance come to consider what to do, I hope that special attention will be paid to reports of that kind, because that is the future.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I 100% agree with everything that my noble friend said. Innovation is one of the seven pillars of the growth strategy. R&D and innovation are absolutely vital when it comes to growth. He will know that life sciences are one of the eight sectors we have selected as part of the industrial strategy, because of the huge competitive advantage we potentially hold in that area. I held a round table last week with representatives of the life sciences sector. They have some incredibly exciting proposals to bring forward. They will be captured when it comes to the life sciences sector plan that we will bring forward as part of the industrial strategy before the spring.