Budget Statement

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, it is fair to say that expectations were low prior to the Budget, and that the Chancellor lived down to them. He may have saved his job but he certainly did not save our economy, which in the last 18 months has gone from a position where we were vying for the championship to one where we are in the relegation zone. One after another, the dire forecasts and economic results have stacked up from the OBR, the IMF and the OECD. Their analysis shows the enormous act of self-harm we are inflicting on ourselves, and the predictions are dire. However, even more worrying are the structural failures in our economy, with a quarter of our workforce low-skilled at a time when technological change puts a massive premium on skills, productivity so much lower than that of our rivals at which the Brexiteers like to sneer, and skill shortages at a time when we are turning away those with skills who happen to come from the European Union.

To combat the economic threats posed by Brexit, we needed a Budget of exceptional skill and dramatic investment. Philip Hammond came over instead as the Paul Daniels of the Treasury. With a great flourish and an amusing line in gags, he pulled some carefully groomed rabbits from the hat. However, on careful inspection, his announcements turned out to be smoke and mirrors. Take that much-trailed plan to introduce railcards entitling 26 to 30 year-olds to reduced rail fares. It is apparently supposed to encourage young people to vote Conservative again, but it turns out to be puffed up way beyond its significance. It cannot be used for season tickets or at rush hours, so most people cannot use it to travel to work or college. Above all, it overlooks the fact that only one in six public transport passengers uses the railways. After all, large swathes of the country—Wales, where I come from, is one of them—have very few railways to use. The bus passengers who make up five out of six public transport users tend to be poorer as well and should be the ones we look at first.

If the Government really wanted to tackle social and generational inequality, they would introduce a reduced-fare bus pass for all. The Liberal Democrats have been advocating that for some years. Sadly, thanks to the huge amounts of money we are wasting on Brexit preparations, the Government feel they cannot afford significant social justice measures like that. In fact, the Government cannot afford not to introduce bold measures. As the resignation of the social mobility commissioners this week has underlined, the Government have a woeful record on this. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report says it yet again. Faced with a crisis, the Chancellor should have read and digested his John Maynard Keynes, rather than his Paul Daniels magic guide. He should have recognised the importance of investment in infrastructure as an economic driver—that borrowing for capital investment is the only sensible solution.

This afternoon, the Minister repeated the much-vaunted list of rail projects. This was also repeated in the industrial strategy and the rail strategy last week. It is a rather disappointing list: it is a re-announcement of a re-announcement of a re-announcement. I was particularly disappointed by the Government’s go-pause-stop approach to electrification. There are lots of problems with not going ahead with this. Not only are electrified railways quicker and more comfortable for passengers, but they are better on emissions. After all, why is it all right to have new diesel trains when we are not supposed to have new diesel cars? There are also issues associated with the fact that areas such as Swansea have been encouraging local investment by companies on the basis that they are going to get an electrified railway line, which they are not going to get any more.

We need a much bolder rail investment programme. Above all, we need it for the whole of Britain, not just the south-east. The social divisions to which I referred are mirrored by the geographical ones. Over £6 billion spent on transport in London is matched by a miserable £500 million in the north-east. That is just inequitable. There was nothing in the Budget to redress that balance. As a result, we have a dangerously unbalanced society. Another missing link in the Budget was the absence of any mention of the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon. Before the 2015 election, senior Conservatives were queuing up for photos there but there has been absolutely no action since. I am disappointed at the lack of effort on renewable energy.

This Budget was long on rhetoric and very short on real funding. Money for electric charging points and the development of autonomous vehicles was announced with a big fanfare. That was welcome as far as it went, but it will not make us world leaders. The Chancellor has let us down in that regard. I spent the weekend at a gathering of Europeans. They think that we are having a national nervous breakdown. They cannot understand why we are being so stupid, because Britain is normally so sensible. Why, oh why, are we wasting billions and billions of pounds on Brexit when what we hear from everyone in industry, across Britain, is, “Please can we recreate what we have now?”? It is stupid.