Queen’s Speech

Lord Duncan of Springbank Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish also to congratulate our two maiden speakers in this debate. We look forward to their future contributions to our deliberations. I also appreciated the contribution of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth. He will know that he had a distinguished predecessor quite recently whom we all greatly admired here. We very much appreciated the right reverend Prelate’s contribution over recent years, and we hope that he enjoys his retirement.

Why do we need to look into a crystal ball when we have the record before us? The Government have a track record on economic provision in this country: a decade of austerity, after which Prime Minister Cameron and Chancellor Osborne failed to clear the public deficit to the extent that they had promised the nation over that period. It was the great target that they set for the economy, and they freely recognised that it ended in failure. The price was paid, of course. Austerity bit deeply into the very weak positions of many of our children in poverty, and we began to become the disgrace of Europe in our provision in this area.

This debate is meant to emphasise aspects of education, one of which suffered most from austerity. The further education sector suffered the deepest cut, at a time when all thinking people knew that we had to consider the issue of how to improve the skills of the nation. We must congratulate the Government, and I do, on making this dramatic change with regard to further education. Both sides of the House have emphasised this in the debate. Many very useful contributions from Conservative Peers emphasised that further education has a critical role to play—and it starts from a very weak base because of the past decade.

Another public service also displayed just what austerity had cost. A decade of a Conservative Government looking after the health service meant that our medical staff were ill equipped with protective equipment when they came to tackle the epidemic. Of course, we all recognise that the epidemic produced demands on the Government that were very difficult to respond to and that there were areas of achievement. There were also areas of conspicuous failure. There is no doubt that the health service was in a weaker position than it ought to have been in when the epidemic broke.

We also need to recognise that the Government’s other great priority was distinguished by the fact that the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill, came to our House as a Minister for a period of time. I was very grateful to have the opportunity to debate issues with him. He was there to ensure that the Government’s objective of improving Britain’s productivity was realised. But it was not, was it? It was a conspicuous failure. Britain has been near the bottom of the G7 group of countries for productivity over the last decade. So let the Government not think that we do not identify areas where there are real weaknesses and where they will have to not just indicate that they are prepared to invest but actually produce the right investment in the right places.

It is certainly the case that the Government have produced a shop window of possibilities. The Queen’s Speech is, of course, not an economic debate but an outline of the Government’s proposals—but large numbers of those proposals have an impact on the economy and nearly all of them will cost a few pence. We will all be very interested when the prices are put on this level of investment in the economic development that the Chancellor will produce in a few months’ time.

It is certainly the case that the Government are already shying away from some tough decisions. They do not offer any commitment to deal with tax havens, which Europe is prepared to move on and we are not; nor do they indicate that they are prepared to tax the very big American companies that pursue tax-free trading. It is a challenge that the Government have to face. Their first challenge will come very soon, and this House will be keeping a wary eye on them.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

The next speaker is Viscount Bridgeman. Viscount Bridgeman? We will move on to Baroness Walmsley.