Queen’s Speech

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, I also congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham on his maiden speech. It was genuinely a very powerful speech on the issues that we are addressing today. I do not want to put words in his mouth but I would like to make a couple of comments that essentially spring out of the remarks that he made, because I think they are very important.

The right reverend Prelate’s speech seemed to underscore the need for the rebalancing of our economy, both by region so that the north of England has the opportunity to thrive after so much historically has been concentrated in the south and south-east, and to diversify away from the dependence that we have had for several decades now on the financial services industry, to rebuild other services and our manufacturing base. This Government should take credit for picking up and working with this issue and with the regional development fund, enterprise zones and centres of excellence, and for the stimulus and tax breaks they have given to those investing in new enterprises, in order to begin to achieve that kind of change. This has become a cornerstone of government policy, one that was utterly neglected by the previous Government, and that is crucial.

The right reverend Prelate also talked about the skills gap. I think it is commonly recognised across this House that jobs are available but that youngsters are without the skills to take them, and that is an extraordinary situation. Again, this Government, particularly my colleague and friend Vince Cable, have pushed ahead with apprenticeship schemes, which had been nowhere on the agenda for at least a couple of decades, and with the youth contract, which is a fundamental change in the attitude towards upskilling our young people so that we can build the industries of the future. It is so important that enterprise and manufacturing have long-term, sustainable potential, whereas for years—and I understand that Labour did this partly because it did not see what was going on—we had an economy that was built on very large, growing public debt, on individual and consumer debt growing at an extraordinary rate, and on debt within our banking system, which was taking down and knocking up false profits to expand balance sheets. Instead of an economy based on burgeoning debt in various key sectors, one hopes that we are now moving into an economy that is sustainable because it is based on genuine contribution, creativity and production.

The right reverend Prelate talked about the cash surplus being hoarded by many of our leading companies. That is a crucial issue. This cash surplus is down to confidence, but it is also a result of many of our major companies having failed to take the opportunity to build their export markets. We are in the most extraordinary situation where Belgium sells more to China than we do. Sir Roger Carr has spoken today about business leaders having to earn their way in the world. He regretted our failure to exploit and to do business with emerging markets and said that we were still not punching at our weight, never mind above our weight. We had similar comments from the City of London last night. There is a real recognition that British business has failed to build its trade and business and to take opportunities in the emerging markets. I fear that part of the reason for hoarding this cash is the bad habit of many of our corporations of simply thinking that they are looking for an opportunity for acquisitions rather than building new product lines and expanding into new markets.

I want to raise with the Government the issue of infrastructure. I am a great supporter, as I suspect are many in this House, of the green investment bank. It was extraordinary to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, say that no investment was being made in infrastructure because the green investment bank is an important breakthrough. However, will the Government confirm in relation to the £3 billion that will be used to capitalise the bank that their goal is to get that money out into investment by 2015 and not just to have the money committed? The two things are very different. Commitments can stretch over a far longer period. For economic growth, it will be important to be on a trajectory of getting £3 billion out of the door.

Others will know that I have been disappointed by the tax incremental financing proposals in the Local Government Finance Bill, because this is another opportunity for infrastructure investment. TIF 1 will encompass only very small projects—it is welcome, but it will not change the world. TIF 2, which has the potential to revolutionise and expand our infrastructure and is driven by local recognition of local needs, is capped at £160 million for the period. I hope that the Government will look at that again. Infrastructural investment in affordable housing surely has to be one of the opportunities that we seize. It seems amiss that credit easing has not encompassed housing associations as one of the areas where it can provide some additional stimulus.

I would be very interested in talking about finance for SMEs, but the Government have allocated time for a debate on those issues next week, for which I thank them. However, we must recognise that our high street banks are not in the business of lending to small and micro businesses and that we must build alternatives to that, whether they be some or all of local and community banking structures on the German or US models. We have to start looking at how we credibly expand and take from fringe to mainstream the various online lenders, and we have to look at the innovative bond markets, particularly social impact bonds and social impact financing.

I see that I am running into my seven minutes, so I shall choose to sit down. Before I do so, perhaps I may say that the Government deserve more congratulation than stick on their plans for economic growth.