Queen’s Speech

Lord Harrison Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harrison (Lab)]

My Lords, in the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, who chaired the very committee on disability and the Equality Act 2010 mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin—I was a member of it—I thank him for his words. It was of great interest for me to do something so out of my natural habitat but I learned a lot indeed.

When I came into the Chamber I was going to direct my words principally to some old chestnuts concerning business, with which the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, will be thoroughly acquainted, but I cannot resist the opportunity to say to the noble Lord, Lord Nash, on his education brief that I am a fanatic for the single market, about which I will speak later, but it seems to me that we have never asked the crucial questions. What are the challenges? What are the skills required by our young people to face that single market of 28 member countries and growing? We have never asked the question—never mind getting the answer.

My first old chestnut is one which my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn mentioned from our Front Bench, on late payment of commercial debt. I ask again whether any progress has been made there. ABFA, the Asset Based Finance Association, is the most recent organisation to say that smaller UK manufacturers wait twice as long as their larger competitors for invoices to be paid. Indeed, those SMEs with turnover below £1 million face waits of up to 14 weeks. Disappointingly, ABFA goes on to say that poor payment practices have become,

“increasingly ingrained in business practice”,

and are “endemic” in many sectors. Can the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, update us on this challenge, which goes back 25 years? I remember leading on this in the European Parliament.

The noble Lord, Lord Nash, mentioned the better markets Bill. I am a fanatic for markets, but competitiveness is not something that the present Government have fulfilled expectations on, and I encourage them to do so. Another enthusiasm of mine is the tourism and hospitality industries. I talked to representatives from them this morning, who tell me that, according to the World Economic Forum, the United Kingdom is the second-least competitive of 141 countries in terms of drawing in inbound tourists. It is things such as the air passenger duty that affect our ability to be competitive.

Another old chestnut is productivity. The ONS says that productivity is worse now than before the recession, which set in in 2007. The UK’s productivity gap has widened, with competitors doing better than us in France, Germany and even Romania, which I visited last year. Why we have the second-worst productivity of the G7 leading western industrial nations requires an answer. Sometimes people talk of a productivity puzzle. I do not think it is a puzzle: we have failed to invest in people, plant and modernisation and to promote long-term investment. Perhaps the Minister should look at the Investment Association’s report, Supporting UK Productivity with Long-Term Investment.

In respect of small businesses’ access to finance, I invite the Minister to give a report on the very hard work of the noble Lord, Lord Hill, in Brussels, on our behalf and on behalf of the European Union, to develop a capital markets union. Where have we got with that? It is important that we enable small businesses in particular to have access to finance.

My last old chestnut is the trade imbalance. There is still a yawning gap, which is getting wider. Some of us are yawning to hear it repeated so often in your Lordships’ House, but I wonder whether we could do something about that. The noble Lord, Lord Nash, also suggested that the digital economy Bill was on its way. It really is time that the Government pulled their finger out on this one. Connectivity is dreadful, and we heard from my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn about the patchiness of broadband. How different it is in Estonia, which I visited last week. The Estonians now have a paperless Parliament. They now have an e-economy, which they celebrate. Indeed, on the Radio 4 business report this morning, we heard from Starship Technologies, which we visited in Tallinn.

One example of how you can use e-technology impressed me. We were driving towards the Russian border when the British ambassador pointed out all the trees—the forests of fir trees in northern Estonia, on the Baltic coast—and said, “With e-technology you can do the co-ordinates and get your Christmas tree for Christmas for €5. You can identify it, choose it and get it sent home”. We have to make a real and greater effort on the e-economy. I would be grateful for a reply from the Minister—she can even send it by email if she likes—as to what we are doing with our Estonian colleagues, who follow us in the EU presidency after our forthcoming one in 2017. We have a common cause in developing the digital economy. Are we actually talking to our friends—those who have beaten the path already before us? I hope we are, but please let us know that it is the case.

I conclude by saying that, as I mentioned, I am a fanatic for the single market. It promotes wealth and opportunity in the United Kingdom, but we too often fail to make the effort on something that was created here in the United Kingdom by Lord Arthur Cockfield—a former Member of this House, who in his time, in the last century, was Margaret Thatcher’s Commissioner for developing the internal or single market. It is something we should celebrate and do with the other 27 member states for the benefit not only of the United Kingdom but of the European Union as a whole.