King’s Speech (4th Day)

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Benches opposite on the general election result and the Prime Minister on a famous victory, albeit that he secured half a million votes fewer than he did when campaigning to make Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister.

The gracious Speech talks about a mission for growth and security. Indeed, listening to the Chancellor yesterday on the BBC, I was impressed by her determination to maintain control on public expenditure and achieve growth in the economy. The noble Lord, Lord Vallance, whom I congratulate on his speech and his appointment to this House, emphasised that and even quoted Karl Popper, who is of course famous for the theory of falsification.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, who served on the Economic Affairs Committee. I am sure he will do a fantastic job at the Treasury as he copes with the disastrous debt consequences of lockdowns carried out without any impact assessment and funded by conjuring £400 billion out of thin air, with disastrous consequences in inflation and the cost of living crisis with which we are all now grappling.

The gracious Speech itself was positively Orwellian in its use of doublethink. For example, we are told that the Government are going to tackle the housing crisis—indeed, a Minister said earlier that she would end homelessness—yet the gracious Speech will prevent flat owners being able to gain control of their property, which will simply reduce supply, push up rents and make more people homeless.

Within days of taking office, the Minister—against the advice of his officials, we read in the newspapers—decided that all new licences for prospecting in the North Sea would be cancelled, affecting £30 billion of investment and 200,000 jobs.

Letting employees choose when and where they work is also in the gracious Speech. I am sure it is very popular to say that, but it is disastrous for growth and productivity. The only growth that will bring is in daytime TV audience figures.

Then there is taking desperately needed capital away from public services, such as the health services and local government, to create Great British Energy and renationalise the railways. Is there a shortage of investment in energy? Yes, if the Government have their way and cancel those licences. There is plenty of private capital, and public capital is desperately needed.

Making it pretty well impossible to dismiss poor performers—and, as a result, to take on untried young starters—will not help with productivity or help small businesses, which will reduce their rate of expansion and be lumbered with costs in coping with these measures.

Lastly, the Government are contracting out the Chancellor’s job—I thought they were against contracting out—to the OBR. It is a quango, a bunch of civil servants whose record on forecasting is abysmal. Even this month they underestimated the debt, which they thought would be £11.6 billion; it turns out to be £14.6 billion. That difference is more than twice what they hope to raise by putting VAT on school fees. The doublethink in that matter is in the gracious Speech, which says that the Government want to

“raise standards in education and promote children’s wellbeing”.

What, by taxing education? They will be the first Government in the world to tax education, forcing young children to leave their schools as their parents cannot bear the burden of that tax. What a disgraceful policy—and about the only one that Labour articulated during the general election.

I congratulate the Liberal Democrats on highlighting social care throughout the election campaign. There is not a mention of it in the gracious Speech, yet it is central to solving the problems of the health service and local government financing.

According to “Panorama”, Ministers say they want to restore trust in politics—but not with this King’s Speech. It reminds me of those lines from The Jungle Book:

“Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,

All complete, in a minute or two—

Something noble and grand and good,

Won by merely wishing we could”.