Economy: The Growth Plan 2022

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, it is an enormous pleasure to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, to the House and to congratulate her on that outstanding maiden speech. It was full of fire and passion, and full of many issues that many of us will be happy to follow her on in days to come.

The noble Baroness is obviously a formidable campaigner. She has managed in the past to persuade the Foreign Office to end the dreadful policy of charging the victims of forced marriage for the cost of their repatriation air flights home. I am sure she will bring that campaigning vigour, her knowledge of the health service and her knowledge of community relations to our deliberations in this House. Today, sadly, we heard the last of one very powerful voice from Birmingham; I think we can console ourselves that we have heard the first from another.

I turn to the debate and declare my interest as co-chair of Peers for the Planet.

“Growth, growth, growth” is a slogan, not a strategy. To turn it into a strategy, you need some adjectives to go along with that single noun. I offer three: “fair”, “credible” and “sustainable”. In the reaction to the Chancellor’s fiscal event, we see very clearly how the lack of fairness torpedoed the 45p proposal and how the lack of credibility of the unfunded tax cuts created havoc in the markets. But I will concentrate on the third adjective, “sustainable”, and argue that pursuing a growth agenda that also aligns with and will deliver our net-zero and nature commitments is not only compatible with but in fact central to long-term economic growth and prosperity.

In the “growth, growth and growth” speech, the Prime Minister also spoke of the need to build our country for a new era, but that new era is already with us; it is an era of decarbonisation and electrification. We have embarked on a transition which benefits business and society through better health outcomes, cleaner air, skilled and secure jobs, and restored and revived natural environments.

As the Treasury concluded in its net zero review, the cost competitiveness of renewable technologies relative to fossil fuels has fundamentally changed, and fundamentally changed our economy. The Government need to make it clear that they understand and are committed to this future, rather than harking back to the technologies of the past. The UK’s greatest allies and competitors—the US, China and the EU—have recognised the opportunities and are acting at eye-watering speed and scale. The US is committing $369 billion towards emissions-cutting measures. Germany is spending €177.5 billion. China is accelerating investment in solar and other renewables. All, unlike the UK, are also moving decisively on national energy demand reduction plans, informing the public and campaigning on energy waste.

We need to capitalise on UK achievements. The successes in homegrown wind power, solar, PV, and electric vehicles have been driven by government identifying and supporting the technologies needed to drive down emissions and bolster energy security. We need to target specific technologies now to deliver tipping points and unblock barriers such as intermittency. None of this will happen without a clear transition strategy and costed and timetabled plans for the sectors—energy, transport, housing and land—that will determine the success of our economy, underpinned by cross-cutting strategies in enabling areas, such as taxation, planning and training.

Last month, Amazon, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners and Sky were among 100 businesses and financial institutions representing £1.8 trillion of market capitalisation that wrote to the Prime Minister. Their letter said:

“As skyrocketing energy bills inflict considerable costs on businesses and push vulnerable households into poverty, we would like to see you prioritise policies that will address this crisis, as part of a robust net zero strategy … Acting now to accelerate the energy transition, could both support UK households with the cost of living and deliver huge economic benefits, unlocking opportunities for the UK to be a leader in clean growth.”


I hope the Government will listen very carefully to that advice.