Spending Review 2020

Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Government’s spending on Covid has been generous—even if some has gone awry—and I do not underestimate the change in mindset that it needed in the Treasury. But lessons of history show that switching too soon into restoring finances slows recovery. The UK was not first in, or alone in, amassing Covid-related debt, and nor does it have to prove a point as it did in the financial crisis. Central banks are no longer seeing low interest rates as an abnormal blip and the IMF advises against an early return to austerity—so why take fright and cut previous growth plans now?

Much of the UK’s social infrastructure is already underfunded. Social care has been left on an unsustainable footing by Governments of all stripes, and universal credit has been cut to below liveable amounts. These are not bleeding-heart views but among the conclusions of reports from the Lords Economic Affairs Committee, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, of which I am a member. The very least that should be done on universal credit is to maintain the £20 increase. Post-Covid and post-Brexit life is not going to be any cheaper, and we cannot build a recovery on the backs of hungry children.

Over 1 million people are still not getting the care they need. Training more people to deliver social care and creating a valued career path can be a key route to providing jobs for the future. With an ageing population, it is time to turn the problem of social infrastructure into part of the solution. Building social infrastructure is faster at job creation than building physical infra- structure, and both are deserving.