Queen’s Speech

Lord Fox Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, last week I had the pleasure of attending a reception given by the High Value Manufacturing Catapult. At that event the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Prior of Brampton, spoke eloquently of the challenges facing this country, in particular the changes that will follow the onset of Industry 4.0, the effects of machine learning, and the scale of the change that will result from those developments. I completely agreed with his speech—which, given the audience, fell on receptive ears. It was clear to all of us there, including businesses seeking to create a new future and some of the brightest manufacturing people around, that the future is changing fast, that Britain needs to change at least as fast and that government must act to maximise our strengths and shore up our weaknesses. Failure to do so will have an impact on all the aspects of this portfolio debate. Yet the gracious Speech did its best to divert attention and fiddle around the margins. Of course, the reasons for that are clear for all to see and will be set out by many speakers in today’s debate, not least by my colleagues on these Benches.

At a time when external pressures on our wealth-generating industries have never been more intense, our Government and the machinery they command are completely distracted. So we face the prospect not only of this Government choosing the wrong paths during the Brexit negotiations but of there being insufficient energy within government to meet the other real existential challenges facing us. The effects of Brexit will be rehearsed by many others in your Lordships’ House today and probably on every other day of the debating week. Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that I will focus on the other part of this challenge.

I shall speak briefly about some of the specific measures in the Queen’s Speech and then pick up some key features around the industrial strategy. We will see that not only are the Government distracted but they are impotent. They have not the slightest chance of passing anything but the most anodyne of measures, which explains the non-Brexit legislation that will be set before us. For example, we have heard that the Government will introduce legislation to ensure that the UK remains a world leader in new industries, including electric and automated vehicles and commercial satellites, about which the Minister spoke very eloquently. Very good, I say. Here, I must draw attention to my declared interests in GKN and Smiths Group. In highlighting those aspects, the Minister has indicated why those Bills are there: they are a diversion from the main issues that we face as a country. They are important but not as important as the things that are not in the Queen’s Speech.

Regarding automated and electric cars, clearing up some of the insurance issues and making things easier to plug in are of course important but there are real technological and infrastructure considerations that are not addressed—not least the woeful wireless and broadband network in the United Kingdom. In that regard, following last Session’s Digital Economy Act, can the Minister tell us when a universal service obligation will be delivered to the whole country and what that USO will be? For its part, the UK space industry, while benefiting from a landing bay, will be massively affected to the negative by how it is being disconnected from the rest of Europe’s industry. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how severing some of our most effective industrial links will strengthen the space industry and, indeed, the wider aerospace industries.

I turn to another part of the Queen’s Speech, where Her Majesty announced that the Government,

“will spread prosperity and opportunity across the country through a new, modern industrial strategy”.

Who would vote against something as good as that? To be fair, once again the noble Lord, Lord Prior, has acknowledged that the current industrial strategy Green Paper, which now awaits the Government’s next move, had its genesis in the days of BIS and the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson. It was taken on and up by Vince Cable and the coalition, so there is a continuum through that process. I am sure that the Minister has read my party’s response to the consultation on the Green Paper but, for the benefit of the rest of the House, I will pull out a couple of points.

From memory, some 40 questions were posed in the consultation, yet none of these asked for any input on how to shape the UK economy to become more green and sustainable. So I ask the Minister: is that because the Government felt they already had the answers to these questions or because they did not care? In answering this question, the Minister could undertake to publish a green business road map setting out measures to incentivise all business to reduce waste and improve effective resource use. He could also explain how the UK can capitalise on our leading positions in green technology and comment on the future role of the Green Investment Bank.

A second facet not highlighted in the industrial strategy response questions was inclusive growth. The Queen’s Speech, rightly, talks about spreading prosperity across the country, so in that regard will the Minister confirm that the Government will recognise the findings of the Inclusive Growth Commission’s report? Furthermore, how place-based development is delivered is key. I would like some clarity from the Government. They have put stock in the creation of metro mayors, yet vast swathes of the country do not have one; it is local enterprise partnerships and other agencies that are charged with driving local development. Will the Minister explain how the Government will deliver their place-based development and how prosperity will be brought across the country? Will it be through the LEPs as they exist now? Will it be through some future, super-charged version of the LEPs, or are we to expect something else?

There is also the issue of skills. Without any real change in the delivery of skilled people, nothing is achievable. We all agree that we need more and different skills. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, and others have eloquently explained how the industrial future will depend on getting this right. As a start, the Government have spoken of T-levels to rival A-levels in esteem. There are no further details as yet, so the Minister could perhaps sketch in how those will work. The Queen’s Speech introduces an idea of major reform of technical education. What does that mean? What does it mean for T-levels? What does it mean for UTCs, their future and their current performance? Whatever is proposed can work only if backed by real and substantial funding for education, training and skills development. All talk of a new sort of technical education pales into insignificance if there is no money. How much new money will be placed on the table to deliver the skills we need?

Finally, there was an eye-catching provision in the Conservative Party manifesto—it is not the one that noble Lords are thinking of—that pointed to the formation of a future Britain sovereign wealth fund, largely funded from shale gas extraction revenues. Will the Minister tell your Lordships’ House whether this fund is still planned and just how much money he expects to be in it by the end of this Parliament? If there is any money in this fund, what will it be used for?

This speech is stuffed full of questions because the election and now the Queen’s Speech have failed to spell out anything meaningful about the Government’s intentions. My worry is that the Government themselves are not sure what they want either. It is very hard to see how the events of the last two years could in any way be seen to be putting the economy first. The economy is suffering from the actions of this Government and will continue to until a coherent vision and route to reach it are properly set out. I hope this debate is used by the Government to start to unveil this vision, but I am not hopeful that we will hear anything that actually and truly spreads prosperity across the country.