King’s Speech

Lord Stoneham of Droxford Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, whose views I have listened to over the last nine years with great care and whose views today I totally agree with. For the past nine years, I have been able to make speeches in the House only when somebody has not turned up or no one has wanted to do it at 7 pm on a Thursday. It is good to speak again, and to regain my freedom.

My overriding interest, particularly as I have been going around the doorsteps over the last couple of months, is to think through what we have to do to counter populism and Reform in this country. The sorry tale of static living standards, low growth and poor productivity in our national economy is one of the compounding factors that has contributed to the problems we now have in the national scene. It must be the objective of the Government to get more growth, and they must succeed.

The Government have to focus on growth. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, in a very strong speech today, about how our national defence security needs to be funded. We need to pay for an ageing population and a proper system of social care. We need to recover and reverse the decline in services and infrastructure, which low growth has imposed on us, and we have to find a successful response to climate change.

A lot of policy areas have been covered today, but I would like to concentrate on just three that are important to the growth objective in the long term, medium term and short term. In the long term, the Government’s industrial strategy and the various other reports that they have done are key. It requires commitment, energy and determination to see these documents implemented. Above all, it needs, if possible, the continuity of Ministers completely committed to them to make our products and our services more competitive.

I would like to draw attention to one aspect that I think needs particular attention. We are a great nation of innovators and entrepreneurs. We have world-class innovation, but it too often fails to capture the economic returns from this work. Before scale is reached, our ideas are often traded on and taken overseas. I welcome last year’s report, Bleeding to Death: the Science and Technology Growth Emergency, by the Science and Technology Committee, and indeed the Government’s response to it. Our world-class universities have to be a major source of this potential, and our world-class capital markets need to be responsive to the needs of high-growth technical companies. Government also needs to be sensitive and supportive—and, frankly, we need cross-party support for these long-term policies to be enacted.

My own area of Hampshire, with its wonderful universities, its medical schools and its Farnborough air facilities and research, has the potential to repeat what it was in the 1930s, with its aeronautical industries, before the German bombers dissipated it. We have almost achieved our local government reorganisation, but now we need to get on with the appointment of the new councils and a mayoral election, which the Government have postponed to 2028 in their latest pronouncements. For goodness’ sake, let us get on and do it at the same time as the new council structures are introduced or voted on next year.

The medium-term objective I want to talk about is our re-engagement with Europe. I am not sure what the government legislation will achieve, but I am obviously supportive of it. Brexit was a tragedy as far I am concerned, and as far as the country is concerned. I have yet to hear today people talking about the benefits we have got from it. Some 30% of the country are still against it, so we should not underestimate the difficulties of re-engaging and taking public opinion with us. One of the results of our debate today, as we heard from noble Lords, Lord Lilley, Lord Redwood, Lord Jackson and Lord Frost, is that we need independent assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of these benefits. We are going to have constant going backwards and forwards. I know where I stand and Iu agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, said. My party, and others, advocate prioritising going into the customs union, because it is possibly the easiest thing to do politically. However, in my view, the benefits of the single market are greater and, if there is political pain, we might just as well go for that, rather than the customs union on its own. Setting that objective might also make it easier for us not to be seen by Europe as trying to cherry-pick.

Finally, I turn to the short term, and I declare my interests in land and housing. It has not yet been revealed, but the information that seems to be coming from the housing sector on housing starts in the first quarter of this year is pretty serious. The problem is going to get worse with the rise of interest rates, if the Iran war continues, and we will then be in an emergency situation for all those who have been trying to restore the housing sector and provide the houses that young people want. A number of housebuilders are already beginning to bail out of buying land. There is some indication that some could collapse, and we need the Government to look at this very carefully. Social housing could be used in downturns in the construction industry, and at the moment the housing sector is blaming construction costs and lack of viability, and it is cautious about development. The Government may have to intervene, and I hope they will use this opportunity to offer to buy private unsold stock to sustain the industry, which otherwise could be a major setback but will now provide an opportunity to expand the amount of social housing in this country.

I commend to the Government three areas of priority: turning innovation and entrepreneurship into scale, restoring our rightful role in Europe, and acting promptly in the housing sector to avoid calamity and job losses in construction. They cannot afford to delay or bluster; they must act decisively.