Spring Forecast Statement

Lord Patten Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, I shall certainly miss the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, around the place. With his economic and business acuity, he will be sorely missed—a real person in every sense.

Today I shall address only the so-called spring forecast Statement. With respect, I cannot ever recall such an empty thing being brought before our House by any Government at any time. It is a monument to emptiness. On reading it, I was reminded inexorably of the Empty Quarter in Saudi Arabia; nothing much happens there, nothing much is seen and nothing comes out of it. It is remote from all reality and totally silent, with one exception—the Saudi Government have brilliantly managed to begin pumping wells in the middle of nowhere, getting on with the vital task of fuel enrichment. If only we had the same determination from the Government to do something about our neglected North Sea assets. The delays are shameful.

We can be certain that a substantial amount of public money was spent by the Treasury and its poor civil servants on producing this pointless exercise. This is a serious issue. In the interests of transparency, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Livermore—who is well known in this Chamber for wanting to give the fullest possible answers and maximum transparency, and not ducking difficulties—just how much in real terms it cost to produce. I would not expect him to be able to answer that during his winding-up speech, to which I look forward, but will he pledge to place an answer in writing in the Library? I hope the cost of the expensive legions of special advisers can also be taken into account, as they fail to come up anywhere in the speech—I read it with great care—or what in their dark jargon is called an “announceable”. The only phrase in the Statement that caught my eye was the claim that we have

“a state that does not stand back but steps up”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/3/26; col. 729.]

That was striking most of all as a triumph of AI drafting. Please can we have the costs, with no hiding behind claims that answers can be provided only at disproportionate cost? We cannot have everything redacted by this Government.

I have great sympathy with and admire the Civil Service; I have had excellent help from it in many places in past years. However, any bright spark contemplating a Treasury career at the moment should be a bit cautious. They are being attacked all the time. Numbers are being reduced; they are being dismissed and categorised as an inefficient lot rightly losing their jobs. That is what most people thinking of coming in are hearing. Of course, the great ones of the Civil Service reach a pinnacle and become a Permanent Secretary, but it is distressing how Permanent Secretaries and others are now at risk of being named and shamed in a most cruel and uncaring way, as the last Cabinet Secretary found.

Lastly, as we stare stagflation in the face, how will all these expensively produced Spring Statement words help our economy? Consider our lamentable productivity. As much as one could ever reasonably expect any group of economists to agree on anything, there seems to be considerable consensus about the reasons. Here is a little list: the national disease of underinvestment; our lagging R&D spend; our escalating labour market horrors, due to the spiralling alleged sickness that we seem to be suffering from more and more; stamp duty issues getting in the way of people wanting to move house to get work; and our poor transport system, which is working against the necessary connectivity to get people to work or to arrive on time, thus increasing cost. One has only to ask the poor would-be traveller— I declare a regional interest—on South Western Railway, which is a true legend in its own timetable for lateness. Regrettably, over the last year or so, although I want to travel by rail for environmental and other reasons, my wife and I have been commuting each week by car, which is not what I want to do, but the Government are not helping. Just why are they doing so little?

Whatever the reason, it is worth noting that all these reasons seem to have led the UK to the worst productivity growth in the G7 in 2025. There is nothing in the forecast about that.