Lord True (Con)

My Lords, it has been an excellent debate—there I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, who I always attempt to agree with but sometimes fall short, for which I apologise. I may do so later in these brief remarks. Like so many others, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for introducing the debate. He is a good and brave parliamentarian and a good Labour man, and was a fine Minister, and I thank him for doing this today. As he knows, I wanted to have effective scrutiny of the Government’s political priorities and legislative agenda before the summer. We did not get that. I am glad that is happening today but I say, with the greatest respect, that it should have been a government Motion. The Government are so proud of their agenda—they should bring that Motion and make the time here. I apologise for referring to it but, frankly, the Cabinet member in this House, the Leader of the House, should be present to address these questions. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, is an outstanding Member—we came along to this gin joint at about the same time—and he will give a good account, but this House must be taken seriously at the highest level and it should not be left to a Back-Bencher to initiate this. When Ministers avoid scrutiny, the whole country is left in limbo. The longer we are in the dark on policies, the longer markets remain frozen and fearful. This is a problem for our country, as we are seeing. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, picked out several themes, the first of which was planning. I think we all agree that planning is far too sclerotic. I am not certain that mayors are necessarily the answer. The most major planning application in my borough, which went in more than 10 years ago and has only just been determined, was held up for about five years by the Mayor of London faffing around, intervening and changing his mind all the time. It is not a panacea. Devolution is now a good buzzword but, as a local government person, I am concerned that we must never lose sight that local government should be local. Instinctively, I understand that our new Prime Minister, with his role in Manchester, in the sense that Manchester is a real place or group of places, may feel that the whole country can be run in this way. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, had some wise things to say about the patchwork of communities. In this drive for devolution, we must be careful that we do not lose local accountability and local feeling. Of course, we all agree on getting people back to work. Many noble Lords have spoken about the tragedy of young people who do not have a job. The same is true of social care. We on this side did co-operate on and respond to the suggestion that there should be cross-party discussions. I hope it happens. I regretted that, when the noble Baroness, Lady May, was Prime Minister and put forward proposals on social care, before the morning had passed they had been condemned by other parties as a dementia tax and the whole thing was mobilised against the Conservative Party for electoral benefit. A bit of repentance all round and a new resolve to work together would be something we could all join in on. I thought the noble Lord was remarkably optimistic in his analysis of the present economic situation. I will come back to that at the end. It is not shared by many observers, nor by everybody who has spoken in the debate. There have been some very interesting speeches on particular subjects. The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, was quite right to say that the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, deserves an answer to her question on Windrush. I thought that what the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, said about low-level crime was very important. I am hearing encouraging things, not only from the Government but in my own party. It amazes me that we see what is going on in California—the crazy decisions they take and the social consequences—but we do the same here. Why should we be surprised? We have seen what happens. If you avert your eyes to low-level crime, you get more of it. The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, made a powerful intervention on science, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, on music. I had a useless liberal education in classics, but I think we sometimes overlook that a liberal, or non-specific, education is very important. I agreed with those speeches. The important issue of defence was mentioned by several noble Lords—the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Coffey and Lady Hazarika. We wait to hear how the Government’s commitments will be put into effect. The Prime Minister has said that this will be made clear at the time of the Budget. There must be a clear path to real targets because there is a threat from Russia. There is an international danger, and we have to work together on this as we have on Ukraine. I very much welcome that the Prime Minister has reiterated our joint commitment to Ukraine. I hope very much that he will scrap the shameful pursuit of veterans for past offences. I would like to hear from the noble Lord opposite that there will be a review of that planned programme of legislation that is putting the trust between the state and our Armed Forces at risk. Europe was mentioned with varying degrees of rapture—predictably high from the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and the Liberal Democrat Benches, and with more scepticism elsewhere. The noble Lord, Lord Frost, said something really important which we should all share. We need clarity. What is the path? What is the negotiating mandate? What are the objectives and what are we going to give away? The Government, in this and many other things, are leaving the world unclear, and that needs to be clarified. On constitutional reform, there was of course great enthusiasm about the idea of electoral reform. The Prime Minister has said there needs to be a mandate for that. That mandate, if ever those ridiculous proposals are again put before the British people, must be backed by a referendum of the British people. That is essential. Housing and homelessness came up on many occasions, led by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. That is fundamental; we need more homes. We promised a million more homes in 2019, and we delivered on that objective. The Government are falling short on their objective, and I hope they will be able to improve that. Almost 100,000 fewer than were needed according to that target were actually delivered last year. The fundamental issue is, “It’s the economy, stupid”. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, was brave enough to say that said she disagreed with the idea of growth. I am surprised she is here, actually. I thought she would be in Holborn and St Pancras, campaigning. I suggest she needs a better candidate than—who is that chap?—Mr Polanski. I do not think he is going to appeal to many voters. We must get growth. The noble Lord, Lord Walker, absolutely hit it on the nail: to get growth, we have to support business, restrain tax and reduce the burden on jobs. More state spending cannot create growth. State activity too often stunts growth. He made a speech that I would have been very happy to have heard from behind me, and I hope his colleagues read it carefully. These are moments of difficulty. My noble friend Lord Redwood is absolutely right that the borrowing costs now, month after month and day after day, are higher than they were in the spike under Liz Truss. This is a serious burden for a deeply indebted country, and I strongly disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, that we want to add to the excessive borrowing we already have with a whole spate of local government borrowing. We need to manage the economy with great care. We need to restrain spending, restrain borrowing, restrain taxation and release enterprise to incentivise family hopes and aspirations. If not, there is a danger we will get to a bad place. To send one Mr Healey to the IMF, as Labour did in 1976, was a misfortune, but to send another Mr Healey would look like carelessness. We know the dangers. We wish the Prime Minister well, but as I said yesterday—and I do not need to repeat it—we are hearing too much of this 1970s language of more state, more tax, more nationalisation, more control and more intervention. That is not the way to a future. Let him be a bold, reforming Labour Prime Minister and have the courage to say something like Jim Callaghan said realistically to the Labour Party back in the 1970s: you cannot go on with state intervention, state spending, taxation and borrowing. We have to set the people free.