Spending Review 2020

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)]

I have two questions to put to the Minister. I declare an interest, in a sense, as a former head of the TUC economic department donkeys’ years ago. One of my jobs was as a member of the Retail Prices Index Advisory Committee. How is it that the Government have referred with prejudice, using the word “discredited”—it is all over the newspapers —to an index that has been around for the best part of 100 years to get an advantage in terms of the relationship to pensions and wages?

A second, statistics-type question relates to net zero. Why have the Government not assessed the need for a moving index of progress towards net zero by tracking the progress of the greenhouse gas coefficient of productivity growth? That is a key thing that the Government have not done. We have to persuade the green family among us that we can have economic growth by reducing the greenhouse gas coefficient.

Finally, this will not work if it is only per head. Africa’s population growth is staggering. It may come down, but at the moment it is staggering. The aid budget change that I would have made is to put a lot more effort into the interaction between family planning and the aid budget. The way to get African Governments to stop people trying to swim across the Mediterranean, which we are trying to do with prejudice, is to make sure that the budget ensures progress in governance. It is in the mutual interest of Europe and Africa to agree on that if we are not to make a nonsense of the net zero greenhouse gas coefficient.