UK: Competitiveness

Lord Cotter Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cotter]

My Lords, I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Levene, on this debate, and I express apologies on behalf of my noble friend Lord Newby, who could not attend due to the retiming of the debate.

Clearly, there are many factors to be taken into account in encouraging competitiveness, top of which is to have a business-friendly Government. It is clear that right from the word go this Government are emphasising the need for the private sector to lead our recovery, and thereby the need to help and encourage business and industry. On the one hand, we are living through very difficult times when costs have to be cut and savings are needed but, on the other hand, we have to be sure that the drivers for our recovery are not discouraged.

It is encouraging that in the past few days, weeks or months we have seen a resurgence in manufacturing, which I very much applaud. Before I entered Parliament, I was the managing director of a small, 30-employee manufacturing company, so it is good to see a bit of a lift in that direction.

The low rate of sterling is of course advantageous for our exports. Also, because of the difficult circumstances in which we are living, many firms have had to cut costs over the past few years, so that in its own way will help with competitiveness.

As my noble friend Lady Noakes said earlier, we have to be very careful to ensure that bureaucracy and red tape are addressed. I know that this has been said many, many times by many, many people, but I assure her and others that we on these Benches are going to encourage the new brush and the new enthusiasm to cut back on red tape and bureaucracy. I believe that with fresh enthusiasm we can do a lot to help.

The noble Lord, Lord Levene, spoke about the future of the financial sector—something about which we are naturally all concerned. When there is much talk about rebalancing, with implied negativity towards the financial industry, of course he should be concerned. However, I would also say that the City and financial institutions need to be encouraged to invest in manufacturing, for example. So often in the past British and UK innovation, ideas and inventions, whatever they may be, have not been encouraged enough. I urge the financial sectors of all sorts to look, as we are all saying, towards production in manufacturing terms.

In the short time since the election there has rightly been a lot of emphasis on business. In that connection I refer to the debate last week in this House on the Queen’s Speech. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, opened the debate with many encouraging announcements on the Government’s programme, when she reiterated the need to cut bureaucracy. She also spoke, among many other aspects of business, about the need to help businesses to start up. There were a number of points that were encouraging, among which was the emphasis that the Government will put on high-speed broadband and wider deployment. Certainly these signs are encouraging and I, along with others, look forward very much to hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, with his wide experience and expertise. I am sure that he will make a great contribution to this debate.