Queen’s Speech

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:

“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, I am honoured to open this debate on Her Majesty’s gracious Speech, and I look forward to many valuable and insightful contributions, particularly from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, both of whom will make their maiden speeches. I thank my noble friend Lord Gardiner, who will wind up today’s proceedings.

This Queen’s Speech lays out a bold vision for Britain: a country where investors want to do business, where opportunity is open to all and where more people are in work than at nearly any time in our history; a country where every city, town and region has the tools to fulfil its economic potential, but in a sustainable way; and a country that is stronger for having been prudent with our finances over the past decade, but is now able to boost investment in public services and vital infrastructure. Today’s debate will consider the Government’s approach to public finances in the next Parliament, alongside plans for transport, business, financial services, and the environment and rural affairs. Each of these areas makes a crucial contribution to the development of a strong, secure and prosperous nation.

I turn first to spending and financial services. As Her Majesty’s gracious Speech made clear, the Government’s economic plan will be underpinned by fiscal responsibility—investing in economic growth while maintaining the sustainability of public finances. As a country, we are in a strong position. The deficit has been reduced by four-fifths since 2009-10 and we have seen the economy grow every year since 2010. There are 3.6 million more people in work, and the proportion of low-paid jobs is at its lowest in 20 years. Wage growth has outstripped inflation for over a year, putting more money in people’s pockets, and inward investment in the UK has created more than 200,000 new jobs over the last three years. With our robust fiscal position, day-to-day spending under control and a near-record low cost of borrowing, we can now invest more in boosting our economy and supporting the things that we care most about.

That is why, ahead of November’s Budget, the Government will review our fiscal framework to ensure that it not only meets the economic priorities of today, but succeeds in delivering a decade of renewal for our country. The review will be coupled with the development of a clear set of rules that will anchor our fiscal policy and enable us to keep control of our national debt.

Our continued ability to compete for investment and jobs depends on our competitiveness. Financial services are critical to the UK economy. The sector employs more than 1 million people in all four UK nations, contributes more than £127 billion to our national economy, and helps provide a trade surplus of over £61 billion. That is why in the Queen’s Speech we included measures to provide certainty and stability for this crucial sector through the financial services Bill. The Bill seeks to enhance the UK’s competitiveness as an international financial services centre, while maintaining our current robust consumer protections. It will deliver on previous government commitments: it will deliver long-term market access arrangements to the UK for financial services firms in Gibraltar; simplify the process which allows overseas investment funds to be sold in the UK, a step that will allow this country to maintain its position as a centre for asset management; and implement the Basel standards, strengthening the regulation of global banks in line with previous G20 commitments.

This Government are determined to ensure that productivity and opportunity are spread to every part of the country. Infrastructure is key to unlocking those benefits. Over 4,900 infrastructure schemes, both public and private, have been completed since 2010. The Queen’s Speech includes plans to build further on these projects, by this autumn publishing a national infrastructure strategy, which will be a blueprint for the future of infrastructure investment across the whole UK. The strategy will set out plans to close the productivity gap between the south-east and the rest of the country, raise living standards and ensure that no community is left behind. It will examine how, through infrastructure, we can address that most critical and pressing of challenges—decarbonisation. It will also set out plans to turbocharge a gigabit-capable broadband rollout and improve energy and transport infrastructure, helping to boost opportunity and spread prosperity throughout the UK.

I am proud to be part of a Government who fully recognise the value that transport brings to the country. Our roads, railways, ports and airports are the arteries that carry the lifeblood of our economy and provide the ties that bind us all together. Our commitment to modernising and extending Britain’s transport network is unprecedented, and our aviation sector is at the heart of our efforts to transform domestic and international connectivity. The UK aviation industry generates £22 billion a year for our economy and provides over a quarter of a million jobs. It is crucial that we support the sector because it makes such an enormous contribution to our nation’s strength.

Our complex and ageing airspace system has not been modernised since the 1960s and is now reaching capacity. Therefore, the air traffic management and unmanned aircraft Bill, contained in the Queen’s Speech, will give the Government the powers to ensure that vital airspace modernisation work can continue without delay to meet future aviation needs and deliver quicker, cleaner and quieter flights. It is essential that, as we help the aviation sector to thrive, we support it to decarbonise to help meet our national net-zero 2050 commitment.

The Bill will also help us combat a new threat—the illegal use of unmanned aircraft, such as drones. In the aftermath of the malicious drone disruption at Gatwick Airport last December, we brought in a range of measures to protect the public. Now, we are going even further and introducing new police powers that will help tackle the misuse of drones not only near airports but around prisons, over crowds and near important national infrastructure and protected sites. These powers include the ability to make someone land an unmanned aircraft and an enhanced ability to stop and search where the illegal flying of unmanned aircraft is suspected.

We are also taking action to deal more effectively with airline insolvencies, which, as we saw with the recent demise of Thomas Cook, can have profound implications for customers, taxpayers and the industry. We successfully brought home 140,000 Thomas Cook passengers from over 50 locations worldwide. It was one of the biggest ever peacetime repatriations, but it underlined the complexity and cost of such an operation. Therefore, we will bring forward legislation to enhance the Civil Aviation Authority’s oversight of airlines. It will create a new airline insolvency process to provide a means to keep the fleet flying and to get passengers home quickly and efficiently if the worst happens.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

It is remarkable how little support for the achievement of the Civil Aviation Authority there has been in our public prints. There has been very little coverage. We all owe a lot to the planners involved in the operation: they are in the public sector—which is why some of the press does not support them—and they did a remarkable job. They deserve our thanks for that.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Lord is completely right and, as he will know, I am a Transport Minister and was involved in the repatriation and obviously in its planning. Within the Department for Transport we are enormously grateful to the CAA and the DfT team who worked so hard on it, but the sad thing is that sometimes the media does not really like good-news stories. Once it was not a disaster, it fell out of the news very quickly, which rather limited our ability to say thank you to the CAA. Certainly, the Secretary of State, other Ministers and I have all thanked the CAA and said that it did a tremendously good job, and all credit to it.

This year marked the 25th anniversary of rail privatisation. Over that quarter of a century, passenger numbers have doubled; we are running more trains than at any time on record and we enjoy a safety record that is world class. Yet these accomplishments have come at a price and we have become victims of our own success. The UK’s railway network is now twice as heavily used as the networks in France and Germany, and delays and disruption are all too frequent. Therefore, while we are pumping an unprecedented £48 billion into rail improvements over the next five years, the railway needs to evolve to deliver for its customers.

In the aftermath of the May 2018 timetable disruption, the Government commissioned Keith Williams to carry out the most comprehensive review of the sector in a generation. His reforms will focus on five key areas: getting the trains to run on time; simplifying fares and ticketing; developing a new industry structure; creating a new commercial model; and unveiling proposals on leadership, skills and diversity. We will publish a White Paper on the review’s recommendations this autumn and, as stated in the gracious Speech, the Government have committed to bring forward proposals on railway reform. It is absolutely imperative that railway customers feel the benefits of these changes as soon as possible.

I turn now to matters relating to business, energy and industrial strategy. This is a Government who want everyone to enjoy the full fruits of their hard work. However, when the Government consulted on the issue of worker tips, we found that two-thirds of employers in the hospitality sector were making deductions, some of which were around 10%. This practice has to stop. The allocation of tips Bill, announced in the gracious Speech, will promote fairness for workers by creating a legal obligation to pass on all tips and service charges to workers in full and to distribute tips on a fair and transparent basis.

In this Queen’s Speech we have pledged to take steps to make work fairer for all. This Government have committed to deliver on the steps set out in our Good Work Plan—published late last year—which sets out our vision for the future of the labour market. These measures will ensure that employment practices keep pace with modern ways of working and that employees have access to the rights and protections they deserve. These reforms will also protect businesses that do the right thing for their workers from being undercut by a small minority that seek to circumvent the law. In addition, we are bringing forward national security and investment legislation to strengthen the Government’s existing powers to scrutinise and intervene in business transactions that are a threat to national security. These measures will give businesses and investors the certainty and transparency they need to do business in the UK.

This Government are committed to ensuring that the UK not only remains a champion of free trade and investment but becomes a global leader in scientific capability and space technology. In the gracious Speech we set out our commitment to significantly boost R&D funding, which will give long-term certainty to the scientific community. We have also laid out plans to introduce a more accessible visa scheme to attract the best and brightest global scientific and research talent. We will establish a new national space council and launch a comprehensive UK space strategy—measures that will transform this country into a global science superpower.

Finally, we are equally ambitious in the scale of our commitment to the environment. We are the first country to legislate for long-term climate targets; after nearly half a century under EU rules that dictate how we manage our nation’s environment, now is the time to go further and faster, to lead the world in safeguarding the environment for our children and future generations.

The Environment Bill will embed environmental ambition and accountability at the heart of government through legislative measures to improve air quality, nature recovery, waste and resource efficiency and water resource management, in a changing climate. These changes will be supported by new legally binding environmental improvement targets, while a new independent regulator will be established to scrutinise environmental policy and law, investigate complaints and take enforcement action.

This Queen’s Speech demonstrates our clear ambition to leave the natural environment in a better state than we found it, delivering a cleaner and healthier environment for future generations while securing the nation’s food production and revitalising our rural and coastal communities. Through the agriculture Bill, we will reward farmers for tackling the causes and effects of climate change and enhancing the environment; and through the fisheries Bill, this Government will manage fishing stocks more sustainably and protect our waters.

We will ensure that the UK sets a global gold standard for animal welfare, enhancing our reputation as a world leader and allowing us to lead from the front as we leave the EU, recognising animals as sentient beings in domestic law and increasing the maximum custodial sentence for animal cruelty from six months to five years.

These are measures that demonstrate this Government’s clear ambition to leave a positive environmental legacy for those who follow us. This theme of ensuring that our nation is the very best it can be in the decades to come runs right through the Government’s plans. The Queen’s Speech sets out a clear legislative programme that will prepare this country for the future and help us to build a stronger, greener, more prosperous Britain.

Our nation’s exit from the European Union dominates events in Westminster, but today there is an opportunity to debate and scrutinise our wider plans for the months and years ahead.