Office for Demographic Change Bill [HL]

Lord True Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 4th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for initiating this debate. Of course, as with the noble Lord opposite, I understand fully that he is not making any statement about the terrible events in Ukraine, which we all condemn and regard with the utmost horror. I might add, as a student over many decades of the history of the Orthodox Christian world, that I find it tragic to see the humane, literary culture of the great Russian nation being traduced by a tyrant and its history and faith being distorted and abused to justify this foul and impious war and the massacre of innocents.

Perhaps I ought to add another personal reflection and declare an interest as a vice-president of the LGA, although I have been retired from local government for some time now. As a long-time council leader, I know the importance of accurate demographic information. That is certainly an objective that we all share and that the country requires.

I also agree with everybody who has spoken—my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe put it very well—that long-term planning is important. I do not think that Governments of all shapes and sizes have been very good at this. I had the privilege of chairing a Select Committee of your Lordships’ House on intergenerational fairness, with the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, as a colleague. I think it true to say that we found that things could be done better by all Governments, and in Whitehall, when it comes to looking forward.

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken today for their thoughtful contributions. As my noble friend’s Bill points out, in a sense, at the heart of good policy-making are the proper use of data and the production of statistics. Understanding the growth, change and distribution of the UK population and its impact is certainly important for immediate policy concerns, as in local government, and for planning for the future.

But—here I ask a similar question to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam—in our judgment the Office for National Statistics serves as a model the world over in its production of statistics. First and foremost, this includes the census programme, with data collected last year and due to be published later this year for Northern Ireland, England and Wales. Alongside this excellent piece of work, the ONS works to produce regular updates on population statistics and makes regular forecasts for demographic change alongside its annual population estimates. I know this to be an area of great focus for the current National Statistician and everyone working at the ONS.

Much of the work my noble friend is suggesting that this new office of demographic statistics might conduct is already catered for by the Office for National Statistics. I do not know whether he is suggesting taking this work away from its current home and putting it into a new body. If so, that would be needlessly disruptive, could be a source of duplication and is likely to incur unnecessary costs for the taxpayer.

As I acknowledged at the outset, we can always improve on how this data is used in decision-making. The Office for National Statistics is planning on running a master class on how using data can better inform decision-making for policymakers. I understand that it is also developing a session specifically on improving understanding of demographic data and its impact on policy-making. I hope it will make information on that available to your Lordships in due course.

On what the Government are already doing in this area, the Green Book commits policymakers to

“consider whether longer term structural changes may occur in the economy or society”,

which include demographic changes. As part of this, the OBR uses demographic statistics as part of its economic and fiscal forecasting, and both national and local government regularly use ONS population and household projections in long-term planning for health, social care, education and pensions.

On the broader point about how to think about demographic change, I submit to my noble friend that while most of the issues he raises are clearly of great significance, demographic change is only one factor in our policy responses. We certainly face challenges as a growing nation—most of those who spoke addressed this—but the idea that the only solution to this is to somehow fix our population to some concept of a manageable level is too pessimistic about what we can achieve through advances in technology and considered policy-making.

Like most of us, I was born into a nation much smaller in population than it is today. There have been challenges, about which many have spoken, but we have also seen great improvements and advancements in our way of life in our lifetime, and that is true for all parts of the nation and all sections of the population, despite the poverty and problems that existed and still exist in our nation today. The Government can always do more in terms of measuring the impact we have on the environment—I agree with those who have made this point—and how we best deliver for a changing country, but to view all this through the lens of demographic change is too simplistic and not what best serves the country.

However, in relation to immigration, the Government have clear commitments, not always recognised in your Lordships’ House. We have moved, as we promised in 2019, to overhaul our immigration system by ending the free movement of people into the United Kingdom, taking back control of our borders, introducing a points-based immigration system, welcoming in-demand workers and offering a range of new and bespoke visas, making it easier to attract and retain the best and brightest talent. But the question runs slightly wider than that.

The Office for Budget Responsibility, which my noble friend has aimed to emulate with this proposed office, has a clearly defined remit as to what it makes its forecasts on, and its oversight of policy areas is largely restricted to the fiscal domain. This office for demographic change would, however, reach far and wide across government policy, and while its assessments and forecasts might be of interest to policymakers, this type of analysis rightly belongs in various policy departments. It is important that they do that analysis—there I agree with my noble friend—but to have such a swathe of policies constantly under review by a government body that is charged with assessing policy through this one lens is not necessarily the most conducive to good policy-making. So while the Government of course welcome scrutiny of our policies and their impacts, we believe this is generally best done by Parliament and third-sector organisations, except in a limited number of cases.

I am sure my noble friend will continue to advise and reflect on these important policy issues and we will continue to listen keenly to what he and all other noble Lords who have spoken have to say on how we best go about addressing the important challenges that he raises, but it is not the Government’s preferred approach to set up new public bodies, nor do we think it is necessary in this case, so we cannot support setting up the organisation he proposes in the Bill. Despite a productive discussion today, to which I have listened carefully, the Government have reservations about the specific proposals put before us. Therefore I must ask that, as the Bill goes forward, everyone across this House carefully considers the specific implications of these proposals.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all those who have participated in this debate. I absolutely recognise that this is a very delicate and difficult subject in which almost anything one says is capable of being misinterpreted, and frequently is. Therefore, I do not so much want people to agree with me—although I would like them to—as for this to become a respectable matter to discuss, which it has not been. Out there, a lot of people feel they cannot talk about it because they will be attacked for that.

Briefly, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon, who talked about the disjointed approach to this whole policy. He said that I had drawn the ODC too tightly, but my noble friend on the Front Bench said I had drawn it too broadly, so I think I am pretty much in the right place, in that case. I thank my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe for her support. She asked about costs. The MAC costs £900,000 a year—that is the MAC’s budget. I think the MAC should be subsumed into this body, so when my noble friend the Minister says we are going to create a new body, we are not, we are going to get rid of one. I know that “one in, one out” is part of the Government’s policy, therefore I think that probably 1.5 million to 2 million quid would cover the enlarged body. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, with her knowledge about the impact of demographic change on older people, and my noble friend the Earl of Shrewsbury with his knowledge about reskilling and the impact of new arrivals on that.

The noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, has faced, and put up, uncomfortable truths for many years. From time to time, I have been ashamed by how he has been treated by the House. Every Member of your Lordships’ House is entitled to be treated with respect. His style may be a trifle uncompromising sometimes—I accept that. Nevertheless, his facts and figures are accurate, even if some noble Lords find uncomfortable some of the conclusions which may have to be drawn from them.

I thank my noble friend Lord Horam for his comments on long-term thinking going wider than just the economy and being crowded. I think the only state in the US which is as crowded as the UK is New Jersey.

The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and I have had common cause on many occasions in the past—and no doubt will again in the future. He is, as one would say at the pub, “a decent bloke”. However, I must say that this was a very, very sorry performance. Overcrowded Islands? had a question mark after it. What is wrong with the current data? What is wrong with the Migration Advisory Committee? We have heard several noble Lords talk about this. I will not detain the House by discussing how we would deal with the situation in Ukraine, but I could.

I say to the noble Lord that he is faced with a problem—namely, he is talking to two audiences. The first is the elite in the big cities and university towns. They regard this subject as insufferably vulgar, prejudiced and populist. The latter is the insult of the chattering classes. They believe that it will be all right on the night and that, if we stop talking about it everything will be fine. The rest of the country, however—if you go back to my old seat in Walsall North, the West Midlands, or elsewhere—is a completely different world. Do they think that there is an issue here? You bet they do. I must say to the noble Lord that, before we get to the next election, the Labour Party must decide where this fits. The red wall seats ain’t going to come back if what the noble Lord has espoused today is the Labour Party’s policy at the next election. This was one of the major reasons for them coming to us in the first place.