Queen’s Speech

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds, and the noble Lord, Lord Lebedev, on their maiden speeches and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth on his valedictory speech. We shall miss his wise counsel. It is an honour to have this opportunity to welcome the gracious Speech delivered yesterday by Her Majesty.

I am delighted the people have given such a ringing endorsement of the Government’s policies, as shown by the results of elections held last Thursday. The Government’s build back better strategy has hit a chord with voters up and down the country. They are also happy that the Government have got Brexit done and made such a great success of the national vaccination programme. I particularly welcome the Prime Minister’s lifetime skills guarantee. Advances in healthcare and medical treatment enable people to enjoy longer working lives, and this means changing careers and training afresh for the next stage in a working life.

The skills and post-16 education Bill should enhance skills and training through reformed technical education and apprenticeships, particularly in sectors where employment will increase, such as construction, digital, clean energy and manufacturing. However, to ensure this increase is realised, the Government must capitalise on our recovered freedom to regulate better as well as build back better. Nowhere is this more true than in the life sciences sector, where the MHRA can now adopt a less bureaucratic and more proportionate regime than that applied by the EMA. This is necessary to ensure the UK can continue to lead the world in pioneering new treatments—a “science superpower”, in the Prime Minister’s words.

It is also essential that we do not throw away the advantage gained by the most successful vaccine programme by unnecessarily extending Covid restrictions on opening up the economy, and I warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s more upbeat and optimistic approach to an early end to the debilitating restrictions that we have endured for so long. This is by far the most important precondition for economic recovery. As my noble friend Lord Lilley pointed out in the debate on the economy on 20 April,

“the recovery will come as soon as we end the lockdown.”—[Official Report, 20/4/21; col. GC 268.]

I agree with him. The Bank of England is now forecasting that GDP is expected to grow by 7.25% this year, the biggest spurt since 1941. The bank’s chief economist has expressed concern that household and company spending are now surprising significantly and persistently on the upside.

I strongly welcome the Government’s policy to introduce eight freeports, and ask my noble friend the Minister what discussions he has had with the devolved authorities to ensure that all parts of the United Kingdom will benefit from this initiative.

The Government face an enormous challenge in disentangling Britain from the EU state aid regime. It is of course true that we have been much more reluctant to deploy state aid in support of declining industries than have most of our erstwhile EU partners, and it is good that the subsidy control Bill will enable us to design a state aid regime tailored to the UK’s needs.

To achieve the Government’s avowed intention to level up opportunities and make the country more prosperous than before, it will be important to reverse the unwelcome freezing of the income tax personal allowance and higher rate threshold and the increases in corporation tax rates as soon as the recovery permits because, as has been shown time and again, reducing taxes attracts new investment and produces a net benefit to the Exchequer. In this regard, I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Newby, who yesterday advocated significant tax rises just at a time when businesses need to be encouraged to grow and create new jobs to ensure greater prosperity for all.

It was good to hear Her Majesty’s confirmation that the public finances will be returned to a sustainable path once the economic recovery is secure. Can my noble friend confirm that he agrees that the sustainability of the public finances will be best assured by reverting to an attractive tax regime which will maximise new investment, the creation of new jobs and prosperity across the whole country? I strongly agree with what my noble friend Lord Bridges said on this subject.

The measures to strengthen the economic ties across the union by investing in national infrastructure are welcome, but the gracious Speech was silent on the UK infrastructure bank, which the Chancellor said in March would be put on a statutory footing as soon as the parliamentary timetable allows. I have no time to comment on other measures, but I look forward to hearing my noble friend’s winding-up speech.