Queen’s Speech

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, in the minutes available to me, I want to concentrate on those aspects that relate to my own portfolio for the Liberal Democrats: business, innovation and skills. Having said that, noble Lords might be relieved to know that I do not expect to be speaking for too long. In all, the Government have made 30 announcements and 28 of those, by my reckoning, have already been made before. However, there is no mention of the deficit or how the Government are going to address the black hole of £7.5 billion they left themselves in the Budget this year. As we approach the referendum, the business world is holding its breath, and so, apparently, are the Government, by failing to look forward to the medium and long-term future of business and the economy of this country.

The gracious Speech starts with a claim that the economy is strengthening. This is patently not the case—economic growth slowed in the first quarter of this year, with the economy growing by only 0.4%. Construction output fell by 0.9%: so much for the party of the builders. Just this week, the CBI downgraded its growth forecast to 2% for 2016, down from 2.3%. The Speech asserts that there will be legislation,

“to ensure Britain has the infrastructure that businesses need to grow”.

However, legislation is not going to solve our infrastructure crisis. The Government’s own spending plans, which require no public borrowing by 2020, are what is putting the constraint on our ability to invest in housing, road, rail and digital infrastructure.

Speaking of digital, the Government’s lack of ambition on broadband is staggering. The universal service obligation for broadband being proposed is for 10 megabytes per second by 2020. That is not close to what we need to be world leaders in the digital economy. The Government’s idea of ultrafast broadband is 25 megabytes per second. South Korea already has speeds of 1 gigabyte per second and rising. The reason why our speeds are so poor is that the Government refuse to invest in new technology. They, and BT, are relying on out-of-date copper-wire technology because they refuse to make the money available for the rollout of fibre-optic cabling to homes. We cannot compete on the world market relying on copper cables. It is like trying to win a Grand Prix on a sit-down lawnmower. If the Government were serious about being a world leader in the digital economy, they would support fibre-to-home broadband, spending money on vital infrastructure, support business to invest in new technology, such as 3D printing, and offer solutions to problems such as the collapse of our retail sector in the face of changing technology, which risks putting 900,000 people out of work by 2025.

We support the objective of being at the forefront of new forms of transport, including autonomous and electric vehicles; we welcome the trialling of autonomous vehicles in the UK. It is important, however, that vehicles are built to run electronically in order to improve air quality. It is also essential that insurance issues are ironed out to determine accountability and that any software vulnerabilities are eradicated.

Time is short, and I know that other colleagues want to talk about this, so I will just briefly mention the support given to the northern powerhouse. The infrastructure announcements are welcome, but although the Government continue to use the rhetoric that featured in March’s Budget, there is actually underinvestment in the north. It accounts for only 1% of currently planned or in-operation infrastructure projects in terms of transport linkage. Moreover, why should Liverpool be ignored as part of the northern powerhouse? Nor is there any mention at all of the so-called “Midlands engine”. Is that now stalled in the Government’s eyes? It certainly needs a bit of revving up.

The announcement on business rates—allowing local authorities to retain business rates—has already been announced in last year’s Autumn Statement. Devolution of business rates has long been a Liberal Democrat policy, but we hope that the Government do not use it as an excuse to cut funding further to local authorities. Proof of this will be shown in which local authorities lose out in the settlement.

I welcome the better markets Bill, even though most of the details have been expressed before. I welcome the objectives expressed, and we look forward to receiving more detail. I hope that we can work together to make sure that those details and objectives can become a reality.

Lastly, I touch on the universities Bill. Noble Lords may recall the Browne report of 2010, which recommended a total free market on fees. These proposals mean that many people would need to make the decision about where to study based on cost and not on academic standards. It is no secret that the Liberal Democrats have struggled on fees, but this is something that we succeeded in holding back the Conservatives from implementing when we were in coalition. We will oppose these measures as bad for students and unnecessary for the long-term finances of universities.

That is all that I have to say on the Queen’s Speech, other than that it is a missed opportunity to look at the medium and long-term future of Britain and bring forward new, innovative plans instead of just rehashing the old ones.