Economy: Productivity

Lord Cunningham of Felling Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Cunningham of Felling (Lab)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)]

My Lords, if we have two short questions, we can hear from the Liberal Democrat Benches and then the Labour Benches.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, the apprenticeship levy is designed to produce another 3 million apprentices over the next four or five years, which will mark a transformation in the number of apprentices we have in this country. The noble Lord referred to the online service. I shall have to investigate that and write to him.

[Lord Cunningham of Felling]

My Lords, sadly, this country has an appalling trade deficit in agricultural and food products, yet agriculture and food argument not included in the industrial strategy at all. Further, our exports of food and other agricultural products have been flatlining for the past 10 years. If we leave the European Union, which is one of the biggest export markets for agricultural and food products this country has, how are we going to make up for the loss of trade which that implies if agriculture and food are not included in our industrial strategy for the future? Before the noble Lord says it, I know that Defra is going to produce its own strategy—but should this not be a prominent part of our national strategy for industrial development?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, agriculture and food production will be a prominent part of our strategy going forward because they are hugely important to the economy. When we discuss our industrial strategy we sometimes focus too narrowly on manufacturing, which now accounts for only 10% of all employment in the economy. We are not going to get the step change in productivity across the whole economy if we do not have a strategy that includes services as well as agriculture.