Autumn Statement: Economy

Lord O'Neill of Gatley Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Neill of Gatley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as this is my first speech from these Benches, I will start by thanking the Prime Minister for allowing me to have served in her Government, as well as her predecessor for inviting me to join in the first place. It was quite a surprise at the time, as well as a huge honour. I also thank the right honourable George Osborne specifically in this regard. It was a great pleasure working with him at the Treasury.

Turning to today’s debate, I also offer my support to the Minister ahead of his wrapping up, as I have sat in the same seat facing such a challenge a few times after absorbing your Lordships’ collective wisdom. It is not an easy task, but it is an honour. Turning to the Autumn Statement, I will concentrate on three areas out of the many that I could choose: the economy and economic forecasts; inequality; and the northern powerhouse and devolution.

First, there remains huge uncertainty about the cyclical and structural outlook for the economy. But although it is easy these days for us all to identify obvious specific factors that enable us to make reference to this uncertainty, this should not disguise the fact that the outlook is always uncertain—a point the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, partially made earlier. It seems now that the situation is more uncertain than usual, but I suspect that is probably not the case. I say this partly because the OBR was less pessimistic than it has sometimes chosen to be relative to others, but it is also important—a couple of noble Lords have touched on this already—that the economy has actually performed notably better since the EU referendum outcome than many expected, myself included. As we have been told, there are widespread expectations that this is unlikely to last, and I agree with many of the stated reasons for that, but it is just possible that the economy could continue to surprise, which would mean a different set of risks from the ones that are being widely discussed at the moment. Although the shift to a less tight cyclical fiscal stance is an obvious move given the possible downside risks, that might need some tinkering in the opposite direction in that event. I have confidence that were that to be the case, despite the much-welcomed new budgetary timetable, the Chancellor would act accordingly.

Secondly, I turn to the sensitive issue of inequality, aspects of which I have talked about in this House in my previous guise. As has become apparent in so many other walks of life—and as has been topical recently in this social-media-driven, 24/7 era—separating fact from fiction sometimes seems beyond many people. During the past 20 years, and indeed beyond that, there has actually been a massive decline in global inequality, as hundreds of millions of people have been, and continue to be, taken out of poverty, primarily in the so-called emerging world. The fact is that the UN’s declared millennium goal of halving poverty by 2015 was actually achieved by 2010—perhaps one of the very few times the UN has been so successful. Many people seem to be unaware of, or choose to ignore or deny, this remarkable achievement of the recent past. However, within many countries, despite this incredible feat, internal measures of equality have often shown widening inequality. This is true even for the likes of China and for some, but far from all, so-called developed countries. Some of this is probably unavoidable, but also possibly transitory, as the bringers of this global wealth enhancement keep, perhaps temporarily, more of the proceeds.

Although the UK undoubtedly has a high level of income inequality compared to other developed countries, it is also a widely unappreciated and frequently ignored fact that UK income inequality is a bit lower today than it was about 20 years ago, on the most usable and best comparable cross-country measures. You would not know this from the general media or from political debates on the topic in our country. In my view, focusing on the younger generation, and more concerted efforts to rebalance economic opportunity around the UK—both to help accelerate a reduction of greater magnitude in national inequality and to benefit those more truly hurt in recent decades—should be a priority for policymakers in this regard. Something that has received some, albeit modest, attention from the latest OBR forecasts is the startling deviation of the income performance of younger people compared to those over 60, and the remarkable generosity of policy towards the latter relative to the former. Surely policymakers must address this startling gap in the years to come, especially with the likely challenging productivity issues related to Brexit. We need to do more to create productive opportunities for those starting their working lives, rather than for those towards or at the end of theirs.

That brings me to the third issue, namely the northern powerhouse and some aspects of devolution. It was heartening to see the Treasury publish specific documents on the powerhouse along with the Autumn Statement, but that did not entirely compensate for the lack of new or additional initiatives. Of course, the Government have provided commendable support for the much-needed improvements in northern road and rail infrastructure, but the importance of east-west train and road links to enable consumers and producers to behave almost as one in what I have often referred to as the ManSheffLeedsPool—Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool—corridor cannot be overstated. As those who have done this analysis—there are not many—show, this would be likely to do much more for productivity in the country, and therefore for living standards, than many other transport infrastructure projects.

State-of-the-art transport infrastructure is necessary but not sufficient. The same is true with respect to devolution, especially to urban areas that have not yet started on this journey. It is disappointing to see no further progress in the Autumn Statement following that initiated with Greater Manchester, now commendably followed by Liverpool and the West Midlands.

There remain key urban areas within the northern powerhouse and elsewhere that, in addition to requiring more local ambition, need not to allow our frequently petty national party politics to hold back what is necessary to unleash more of the local bottoms-up-driven vitality that is needed to boost their, and national, productivity. This would help all the UK to compete better with the challenges that lie ahead and, of course, to have a much more meaningful impact towards further narrowing inequality. I hope the Government will put their political-party rivalries aside in this regard and make a renewed push in the area, as it is central to their appropriate mission to raise national productivity.