Economy

Lord Bhattacharyya Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bhattacharyya (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chairman of WMG at the University of Warwick. I thank my noble friend Lord Haskel for this opportunity to look beyond austerity.

In politics, current issues can obscure future opportunities. Ministers must have sweated over their deadline to offer 40% budget cuts last Friday. We have had a few pressing issues to absorb us on these Benches too. So it is a pleasure to be able to think of the future.

In the search for growth beyond austerity, we must look beyond our own borders. This may not feel comforting; we know the problems of the eurozone and now fast-growing economies appear unstable as well. Yet for all the headlines, China is still growing. Domestic retail is up 10%, innovation spending is surging and infrastructure spending is a quarter of a trillion dollars. Yet our exports to China are just 1/20th of our total. So why, as the EEF says, are half of our manufacturers and the Government concerned about China? It is not simply exchange rates—Chinese firms now produce quality products and are stronger competition, as we have seen in the automotive sector. Western growth depends on partnerships with economies with expanding domestic demand and quality exports, so we gain from trade and investment.

The latter is crucial for us. British capital formation is behind that of our competitors—just 17% of GDP. Our infrastructure spend has lagged the G7 for three decades. Our science base is excellent but business R&D is well below the EU average. Where will we get the resources to change this? Trade is welcome but British goods exports will be only a small part of our economy in the medium term. We do better on services, despite handicapping ourselves with restrictions on our premier education exports—or degree courses, as we usually call them.

The best strategy is to attract inward investment. A good parallel is Japanese firms in the 1980s. They wanted to expand into Europe, so there was a real commitment to securing that investment for Britain. At WMG, we worked with Ministers and unions to offer what Japanese companies needed. As a result, Britain secured one-third of all European FDI. That did not happen just in the 1980s. Foreign firms created more than 1.5 million jobs in the last decade.

Today, we need to commit to getting investment again. Hitachi in Durham shows what can be done. It seems that we are to spend two years discussing leaving Europe. This is a real risk to growth. We must resolve that quickly. If securing investment is our external priority, our internal need is to improve productivity. The CBI and the TUC are not soulmates but both endorse Krugman’s view:

“Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything”.

The Government agree. On high-speed rail, skills, science, the northern powerhouse and the Midlands engine, their agenda is attractive.

There is consensus across politics. Last week, Chuka Umunna and Vince Cable gave support to policies such as the apprenticeship levy, protecting research funding and the Business Bank. But, as in the 1980s, delivery is what counts. Increasing innovation spend requires more work than a tax cut. On infrastructure, it is easier to review than to decide. We need an infrastructure commission to get projects agreed, as Sir John Armitt has proposed. While we must demand business investment in skills, it would be a mistake to cut FE spending before they do.

The summer Budget had good strategies. There are rumours that the spending review will show slow progress in the winter. I hope that the details of November will match the ambitions of July. If they do, we will all be more confident in our economy beyond austerity.