Growing the UK Economy

Lord Bichard Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for raising the £22 billion—he knows it is one of my favourite topics, and I am always very happy to talk about it. It was obviously one of the most shocking features of our inheritance from the previous Government that they had £22 billion of commitments that they did not fund and sought to conceal from various government bodies. That is deeply shocking and should not be taken lightly. The noble Lord has said to me previously that the Government’s budgets are bloated; most government departments would dispute that, after decades of austerity under the party opposite. We know that public services are stretched extremely thin. I have asked him before for his examples of that bloating, and what savings he would propose. I would be more than happy to discuss any potential savings that he has in mind, but I think they are unlikely to reach the level that he describes.

[Lord Bichard (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister reassure both me and the House that the Government and the Treasury understand that growth in the economy is about investing not just in capital projects but in people? We have seen an underinvestment in skills for the last 15 years. Are we going to see another few years when the skills element of growth is not given a priority? We are going to be debating it later in the week; I would like to know whether it features highly in the Treasury’s considerations.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

It does absolutely, and I agree with everything the noble Lord said. Investment in people is one of the key pillars of the Government’s growth strategy, and skills falls under that, so it is a top priority. I talked about how the Chancellor’s strategy is to improve the supply side of the economy and, obviously, skills are a key feature of that and of our ability to grow the economy. When it comes to all the various infrastructure projects we are talking about, we know that we are going to need the skilled labour to achieve them. I am happy to reassure him that it is central to our thinking.