Lord Young of Cookham
Main Page: Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative - Life peer)
Lord Young of Cookham (Con) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, it is a particular pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wrigglesworth, because, as he said, we both worked for the same nationalised industry over 40 years ago before we embarked on our respective political careers. I am delighted that our paths have converged once again in your Lordships’ House. I am grateful to him and to my noble friend for their very kind words about me. It is an honour and a privilege to make one’s maiden speech in your Lordships’ House. My arrival here has obliged the tabloid press to rebrand me from the “bicycling Baronet” to the “pedalling Peer”, but there are worse things to be called by today’s media.
Having read your Lordships’ debate about the size of this House last month, I was worried about the welcome I might receive because reference was made to an article describing the new intake, of which I am part, as the,
“extraordinary ennoblement of failed and discredited politicians”.
But there has been no trace of that ungenerous remark in my welcome to this House. Your Lordships could not have been kinder to the new boy. My sponsors, Black Rod, the Whips and the staff of the House have so far kept me out of serious trouble. As a bonus, the induction tour took me to a part of the building I had never been to in 41 years—the Sports and Social Club.
I understand all the sensitivities in this House about those who arrive here from down the corridor. But given that this House has as its mission the scrutinising of legislation and holding Ministers to account, I hope that those who have served an apprenticeship elsewhere might be able to add value to the proceedings in your Lordships’ House. It is also helpful to include those who have held office and can from first-hand experience spot the Achilles heel in a ministerial defence.
For my part, I think that I have the unique record of having been sacked by two Prime Ministers and then brought back by both of them, leaving unresolved the question of my ministerial merits. I have joined the Government more often than the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson. I think that I am the 8th former Government Chief Whip to join your Lordships’ House. In that capacity, I noticed that the Government lost more votes in one day last week than I did in two years. However, that is in part because the residents here are free range, as opposed to battery farmed.
I have always taken an interest in your Lordships’ House. With the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, I co-piloted the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Bill in the last days of the last Parliament, which landed safely before dissolution. It enables your Lordships’ House to deal appropriately with,
“noblemen who have gone wrong”,
in the words of Sir William Gilbert in “The Pirates of Penzance”. It has a part to play in upholding the reputation of this House, and I hope I never activate its provisions.
I also understand the fear that the rarefied atmosphere of your Lordships’ House might be contaminated if we bring with us the emissions from the other place. I will not be doing that, having been equipped with the appropriate software. However, as one of the less partisan Members of the Commons, I welcome the calmer atmosphere here. What would be acrimonious exchanges on the green carpet become civilised discussions on the red one. I was only rebuked once for my behaviour in the House of Commons, and that was in the 1970s, with George Thomas—later the Viscount Tonypandy—in the Chair. We were debating the state retirement pension; I opened my remarks by congratulating the Speaker on his 65th birthday and expressing the view that he might like to take a particular interest in the debate. I was rebuked for my insolence, but he then excised the exchange from Hansard.
I would like to make a brief contribution to this debate, so ably introduced by my noble friend. Before joining the other place, I was economic adviser to a nationalised industry—the Post Office Corporation, which embraced both BT and Royal Mail. As with other nationalised industries at the time—the noble Lord made this point—there was political temptation to freeze the prices before an election and then increase them afterwards, which played havoc with demand. The investment programmes were constrained by and caught up with the fluctuating fortunes of the government finances and were sometimes directed towards marginal seats. That was no way to plan for and run major infrastructure companies where stable, long-term investment was crucial.
To pick up on a point made by my noble friend who introduced this debate, after BT was privatised, I went back to the staff canteen to meet my former colleagues. On the notice board was one piece of paper: a chart of the BT share price. To me that symbolised one of the benefits of privatisation: the identification by the employees of a company with its success, in a way that was simply never possible under public ownership. Privatisation of BT brought choice in handsets and providers and got rid of the waiting lists; it would be absurd to renationalise it.
Twenty years ago, when I followed in the footsteps of my noble friend who introduced this debate and became Secretary of State for Transport, I completed the privatisation of the railways. Some noble Lords may regard that as a spent conviction, but I am unrepentant. Instead of a British Rail monopoly, we have now created a vibrant railway operating industry, using the skills of the airlines, the bus companies and overseas operators. They bid competitively for the franchises in the interests of both taxpayers and passengers. If British Rail failed, no one else could run the railways, but now we have a range of competent providers. Instead of an industry which looked inwards towards the Minister for funds, we have train operating companies looking outwards to the market—to their customers—to generate more revenue.
I remember the public expenditure rounds in the last Conservative Government. I would appear before the Star Chamber, which was populated with colleagues with whom I have now been reunited, and tell them of my requirements. They would say, “George, we are really excited by your new train set, but health, education, defence and the police have got the money”, and so not enough was left for the railways. Now, however, the train operators and the roscos—the rolling stock companies—are not inhibited in the same way and investment has soared. We may not have got absolutely everything right—it was done against the clock, at times without a majority in the other place and with an Opposition threatening to renationalise—but the basic structure has remained unchanged and passenger numbers have doubled.
At the moment, the Treasury is conducting probably one of the most difficult public expenditure rounds since the war, with the outcome due to be announced next month. I ask your Lordships how much more difficult that exercise would be if in addition to the demands of health, education, the police and defence were added the investment requirements of the nationalised industries. In my view, freeing these companies from the constraints of the PSBR was the most significant and welcome consequence of privatisation.
Over the last 20 years, a broad consensus has emerged that the wealth-creating infrastructure companies are best located in the private sector. There is a legitimate debate about the process, the price and the appropriate method of regulation, but I hope that we have left behind the arguments of the 1970s and 1980s. There are grave risks in breaking that consensus, such as a threat to the investment programmes of the industries concerned. Why should they risk capital if they are about to be taken over? It would be a serious diversion of management effort to see off the threat of nationalisation. That is the last thing that these important industries need at this stage of our recovery. I very much hope that the debate, so ably introduced by my noble friend, will help to ensure that common sense will prevail and that the consensus holds.