Economy: Productivity

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, I am bursting with enthusiasm and full of energy to get things done. I cannot claim that this Government will not encounter some of the problems that previous Governments down the ages have encountered when implementing their plans, but I refer the noble Lord to chart 2.B in the National Infrastructure Delivery Plan, published a fortnight ago, which shows that, of the 602 projects that the plan sets out and are in the pipeline, 61% are in construction, 50% will have been completed by 2020-21 and a further 49% will by that point be either under construction or part of an active programme. So we are full of enthusiasm, full of energy and we are getting going.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

Will my noble friend explain to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, that the Office for National Statistics figures which so worry him may not tell the full story by any means, because they take too little account of the huge output of data and information in the digital age, which now generates more economic value than the whole of global goods trade?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My noble friend makes an extremely good point. Sir Charles Bean recently completed a review of the UK’s economic statistics, and one of his findings was, as my noble friend said, that if the digital economy had been properly taken into account, economic growth would have been one-third to two-thirds of a percentage point higher over the past decade, with similar implications for productivity. However, I stress that that would not explain the UK’s recent poor performance in comparison with other countries, nor why productivity has worsened since the financial crisis, so we are not complacent.