Economic Prosperity and Employment

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, the House owes a debt of gratitude to my noble friend Lord Haskel for introducing a debate that has produced so many varied but constructive speeches about the circumstances in which we find ourselves. My noble friend emphasised the advantages to be derived from business and Government working together, and identified the way in which this co-operation was essential if we are to get out of our present difficulties.

Two speakers also put the present position into a more general perspective. My noble friend Lord Giddens stressed the fact that the crisis is very far from being over. No country has successfully re-established itself from the crisis which obtained in 2007 and 2008. In any case, Britain is well down the list. That helps to explain why there are so many difficulties right across our economy and puts into perspective the anxieties of noble Lords such as noble Lord, Lord Cope, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, about SMEs. The reason why the banks have been reluctant to lend is because they have been at the centre of this devastating crisis. That has presented them with problems so great that the state had to step in for two of the major ones, and huge sums of money are at stake.

The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, also indicated that if the Government took no responsibility for restoring demand in our economy then it was likely that we would continue in the present difficulties, which are not to be underestimated. Real wages are lower under this Government and, when they go out of office in 2015, will have fallen by 2.4%. We all know about cuts in benefits, so that section of the community is paying the price. So wage-earners and those on benefits are suffering, and we all recognise that unemployment goes right across the economy and affects a very large number of people.

In its economic survey of the UK economy, the OECD made the nature of the problem quite clear: productivity underperforming in relation to the rest of the OECD countries. We had fallen, at the onset of the recession, by more than other countries in the OECD. The noble Lord, Lord Bates, indicated successes with regard to exports, but we have an increasing balance of payments deficit. Despite a 20% sterling depreciation, Britain is still nowhere near earning its way. That is the depth of the crisis into which we must put the context of what we need to do about policy, particularly in relation to industry.

It has been argued that we are making clear success in some areas, and indeed we are. The noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, speaks with great authority about the relationship between science and research, and the fact that we have high-class universities that help our industry. However, the noble Lord emphasised that we need to identify the results of such investment. That surely must be critical because we can live in a fool’s paradise if we think we are doing the right things but have no measurement of the outcome of policy.

This is crucial in one area that emerged in this debate and was raised by many speakers on both sides of the House; I refer to the skills gap and the skills dimension. Successive Governments have addressed themselves to this and gone in with great intentions to invest. Certainly, the previous Labour Government invested greatly in colleges and the Learning and Skills Council, and addressed the skills deficit. We have not solved the problem; indeed, far from solving it, as many noble Lords have identified, we are well behind other European comparators. It is not easy for the British economy and society to adopt German perspectives on how to run industry and develop skills. The German apprenticeship system is very different from the situation that confronts British industry. However, we certainly need to address our minds to the level of skills, which is palpably too low to serve the needs of the nation.

The other question is what can be done to invest in infrastructure to promote jobs and demand, as the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, mentioned. One can only say that the Government are acting late on this. They have so far done nothing of any merit with their programme, and it will still be the case that capital investment will be lower in 2015 than it was in 2010. That is not a recipe for success or for the development of our economy. That applies to schools policy and particularly to housing. After all, there should be investment in the construction industry to give some stimulus to the economy but, of course, the Government have done little about it. It is therefore not surprising that the noble Lord, Lord Cope, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, can identify the difficulties faced by small and medium-sized enterprises in obtaining resources.

On our side, although we have faint hopes on this, we think that the Government ought to do what my noble friend Lord Mitchell first referred to, as did my noble friend Lord Hoyle, and establish a business investment bank. We need a bank with a network of regional banks because if there is one clear casualty of this crisis it is the complete collapse of our regional infrastructure. We all know that the Government dispensed with the RDAs and then discovered that the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, had some pretty sharp advice for them on the problems and how the RDAs actually produced investment in the regions. At present, precious little is being done.

My noble friend Lord Haskel and other noble Lords—generally those on my side, including my noble friend Lord Monks, who was emphatic—raised the issue of how we tackle short-termism in British business. “Quick results reflected in share value” is the nostrum of how our businesses work, and it is not therefore surprising that if one is faced with potential takeover bids, to which the only defence is to enhance share value, that becomes the issue rather than investment in research, skills and development of a longer-term perspective for industry.

My noble friend Lord Haskel referred to the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, whose absence from this debate we greatly regret. He is concerned to see how we can build a business model in which shareholders have greater strength to hold boards to account. If anyone wants an illustration of why boards need to be held to account, just consider the salaries of chief executives, board members and directors over the past 20 to 30 years. The enormous disparity between them and the people who actually do the work in industry and companies is a reflection of the power of the boards, which we do not challenge effectively.

We may have to go some way before we follow what my noble friend Lord Stone suggested in relation to Marks and Spencer or the illustration given by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in terms of John Lewis Partnership. It may be a considerable time before we are able to engender a framework within which businesses can be organised on those bases. However, at the very least, surely the other side, having preached for so long that the Government must lay off business and let it pursue its own objective, must recognise that the cost of the short-termism of British business—particularly the absurdity of the short-termism of British banks—is that it has contributed to the crisis that we are all facing, which we desperately need to remedy.

I conclude with some questions. I wish to come off the macro and step down a notch. My noble friends Lord Mitchell and Lord Hoyle mentioned the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. It is a Treasury Minister who is responding to this debate but if we are to make a change to business structure, the Department for Business has to be reformed also. The department is being reduced in size; its staff are recruited increasingly from the south-east, where it concentrates its resources; and it has very little representation in the regions. It is small wonder, therefore, that we have real anxieties about the capacities of that department.