Viscount Stansgate
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(5 days, 23 hours ago)
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Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Viscount; he has far greater expertise in these matters than I do. The Secretary of State, when she presented the package of reforms to Parliament, said that the costings that she was setting out were subject to final costings by the OBR. The OBR has now set out its final assessment of costings and confirmed that this welfare package will reduce welfare spending by £4.8 billion in 2029-30. Following the OBR’s final assessment of the welfare savings from the package, taking account of the £1.4 billion of investment the Government are putting towards the reforms, including the £1 billion of employment support, the net welfare savings of this investment is around £3.4 billion.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
Can my noble friend confirm that the Statement’s provision for capital spending is crucial if the UK is to sustain and safeguard its research and development budget and infrastructure, such as data centres, that will be vital for future growth? Does he agree that we will need a combination of our world-class universities, entrepreneurs, emerging AI companies and others not only to start up but to scale up businesses in this country? As your Lordships’ House’s Science and Technology Committee is now investigating, it is the scale-up that is the real challenge.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
My noble friend is right. The Autumn Budget increased capital investment by £100 billion over the Parliament, including investment to protect record R&D funding, which, as my noble friend said, is vital for growth. The OBR has looked at the growth impact of that investment across a decade and it has been clear that those capital investments—which, incidentally, the party opposite opposed—will lead to a significant 0.4% increase in growth over the longer term. Not cutting capital spending, which the party opposite did time and again, was one of the most significant growth measures that the Chancellor outlined in her Statement.
My noble friend also talked about start-ups and scale-ups. He knows that I agree with him 100% on that. This country is extremely good at start-up; it is much less good at scale-up. Getting the necessary capital to those scale-ups is one of the most important things that we can do.