Economy: Growth

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel]

My Lords, first, I congratulate my noble friend on this debate. I should also like to commend the Minister for his perseverance. This is the third Thursday on which he has been on that Bench. I am very pleased that this debate has moved on and that we have not heard a lot of speeches which continuously tell us that all our troubles have been down to the previous Government.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Hollick that the Government’s paper, The Plan for Growth, has many hopes and aspirations. Who of us does not support balance in the economy and growth in manufacturing, investment, skills and science and technology? We all share, and have shared, these aspirations for many years. When I talk to people in business today and ask them what they consider to be the most important factor for their future prospects, the answer is not tax, regulation, or the five things that the Government list in their paper. It is people such as those who my noble friend Lord Hollick listed and the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, spoke about; as a Jewish immigrant, I thank him for his words. It is not people who are anxious to avoid tax. As my noble friend Lord Kestenbaum said, it is people who want to be part of a national effort to build our economy. But this topic is entirely absent from this paper. It is the modern style of outward-looking, entrepreneurial people-based management which seems to be the hallmark of most new successful businesses, about which my noble friend Lord Mitchell spoke.

The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, spoke about government grants. Yes, the Government do try but their finance is available in small packets for specific purposes. Schemes are announced all the time. One such scheme, announced in May 2010, was a tax break for the first 10 employees of a new business set up in Britain’s poorer regions This scheme received special mention in the Economist on 3 March. A government source described the take-up as “incredibly low”. It was incredibly low not because of bureaucracy but because this fragmented attitude no longer works. Trying to tease out individual causes does not seem to work any more. Businessmen have to bring it all together. At the end of the day, you either have confidence in the people and the project or you do not. As everyone knows, it is people who matter, which is where our priority should lie.