Baroness Coffey (Con)

My Lords, there is a street in Liverpool called Hope Street. It is very special. At each end there is a cathedral and in between are cultural wonders: not only the grade 1 listed toilets in the Philharmonic drinking house—the pub—but the Philharmonic Hall, the Everyman Theatre and, indeed, places of education. Hope has been the big vibe of our new Prime Minister, but we need to make sure that hope translates into delivery. I, too, am a person of faith, but having heard what the Prime Minister has been saying in various speeches, it may take a leap of faith to know how we will get that growth and hope for young people. The Prime Minister should take the advice of the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill of Gatley, who, just after hearing the Prime Minister the other day, said that what he said would worry investors. I appreciate that the Prime Minister wants to succeed—I am not disputing that in any way—but to try to destroy the past, including the very successful years of the Blair Government, would be a mistake, as would thinking that the 1970s were all rosy. We had huge mortgage rates and inflation and you needed candles to do your homework. I do not know whether the House of Lords was even able to keep the lights on while legislating. However, I welcome the commitment made by the Prime Minister yesterday to get defence spending to 3% of GNI by 2030. I am sure that, if the Prime Minister needs to go back to the House of Commons to correct the record, he will but, actually, I do not think he wants to lose another Chancellor. I am confident that they will find a way together. They might want to take the advice of the leader of the Opposition, who set out a path to achieve that. The First Secretary of State made an interesting Statement yesterday about rewiring the state. I welcome a lot of it, including more power going back to Ministers, who should be accountable. We will have to consider how we will legislate for quite a lot of it, because it is through legislation that many powers are being taken away from Ministers and given to non-ministerial departments and other bodies. We will also need to look into what is happening with the delays and consultations referred to. To give an example, we know that Labour Back-Benchers are nervous about changes to the welfare system. They are very quick to vote for legislation that rapidly increases benefits, but not so quick to look into necessary reforms. Indeed, the Timms review has apparently been delayed again. These are the sorts of challenges that vibes and hope will not get through; it will take detailed work to genuinely get the country on to a better path in terms of prosperity for all. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, seemed to spend half his speech talking about the Opposition instead of the future of the Government, although he did mention the Fingleton review and the like. I gently remind noble Lords that, although there were, undoubtedly, difficulties in our time in office—part of which we shared with the Liberal Democrats during the coalition—we inherited an 11% deficit in 2010 and went through Covid when, frankly, the whole economy juddered to a halt. We undertook unprecedented borrowing to protect people’s health and to be ready to spring back, but difficult decisions were made which will take time to recover from. Therefore, hope is not enough. Let us all work together to make sure that we get the growth that we all desire.