Government Political Priorities and Legislative Agenda
Thursday, 3 September 2026
Contributions
Motion to Take Note
Moved by
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
That this House takes note of the Government’s political priorities and legislative agenda.
Captain of the King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard and Deputy Chief Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
My Lords, as set out on Today’s List, Back-Bench speeches in this debate should be limited to four minutes. I am sure I speak on behalf of Members across the House when I say that I would be grateful if Members could stick to this advisory time to ensure that the Minister has adequate time to respond to the points raised.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I want to start this debate by paying tribute to Sir Keir Starmer for his immense services to the country. He took Labour to a landslide general election victory. He inherited a country reeling from 14 years of Conservative rule resulting in a weak economy, failing public services and shockingly run-down defences. Under his stewardship the economy grew, public services improved, violent crime reduced and our international reputation has been enhanced, not least because of his stalwart support for Ukraine. No one can be in doubt that this country faces considerable challenges. As the Prime Minister told the Commons on Tuesday: “Things are not working as they should. Life is too expensive and too hard for too many ”.—[ Official Report , Commons, 1/9/26; col. 26.] The Prime Minister believes that much of this malaise has been caused by a series of damaging wrong turns that centralised political power and surrendered public control over vital utilities, leaving citizens vulnerable to inflated cost, which was then compounded by Brexit. The noble Lord, Lord True, said in his eloquent tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Sarwar, that we do not shout at each other in this Chamber. That is right, but I want to comment on a remark he made yesterday on the Statement when he accused this Government of going back to the 1970s. I gently point out to him that this country was much more equal in the 1970s. The last 40 or so years have seen us lose that equality, with 10% prospering but 90% falling behind or stagnating. Many of the places and people most affected have not recovered from deindustrialisation. The Government are ambitious to improve the standard of living, sort out social care and housing, boost vocational education, meet our NATO defence commitments and make the UK’s voice count. The Prime Minister is clear that devolution is the key to progress and prosperity, with the setting up of No. 10 North at the heart of the growth agenda. As a Brummie, I say that we have now redefined ourselves as being part of the north. The immediate measures taken by the Government are important both in themselves and as a visible sign of intent for the longer term. They include: capping bus fares at £2 in England, which has been a huge boost to many, many people; cutting VAT on electricity bills; reducing tax on pubs; investing to get rough sleepers off the street; funding to support the delivery in the first instance of more than 70,000 social homes; and action on the mountains of illegally dumped waste. The Prime Minister is using government to make a difference for people who feel hard pressed, solving problems that have been long neglected or where public authorities have been too slow, unwilling or seemingly powerless to act. The economy is clearly critical to this. Despite doom-laden predictions, the UK economy had GDP growth of 0.6% in the first quarter, followed by 0.4% in the second quarter. In fact, the UK is currently the fastest-growing G7 economy. Borrowing this fiscal year is running £6 billion below last year and, as the ONS has noted, it was the 12th lowest April to July period since 1993. The noble Lord, Lord True, mentioned borrowing yesterday. We hear a lot from the Conservatives about borrowing, and they certainly know a thing or two about it: the last Conservative Government borrowed more than the G7 average in every single one of their 14 years in Government. This year, this Government are borrowing less. I have to say that the appointment of Andrew Griffith, the co-author of Liz Truss’s mini-Budget, as shadow Chancellor makes one question the seriousness of the claim that the party opposite has to economic competence. In relation to debt, recent analysis by Morgan Stanley compared its estimate of the UK’s 96% general debt-to-GDP ratio at the end of this year with that of 120% for China, 120% for France and 125% for the US, with Japan and Italy higher still. Morgan Stanley commented two weeks ago that the UK stands out among the major economies in trying to do something about rising debt. Clearly, growing the economy becomes crucial to the future. There are three points that I will put to my noble friend that I think are important to growing the economy. The first is tackling the high costs of and long timescale for building essential infrastructure in this country. The Centre for British Progress has reported that British public investment is on a par with OECD averages but we get less back from it. The government response to the Fingleton review on nuclear regulation put it very well: “Our regulatory, environmental and planning processes have become too fragmented, too cautious and too slow, driving up costs”. The recently enacted Planning and Infrastructure Act will deal with some of the blockages, and I am delighted that elected mayors are going to be given powers to take over large-scale planning applications. I urge the Government to go further and extend that to energy infrastructure projects, and to speedily legislate for Fingleton’s recommendations. A second key factor in growing the economy is sticking to our commitment to net zero in the face of ever-worsening climate change. The Conservatives’ retreat from their commitments on net zero—this was the party that actually legislated for net zero—is no reason why we as a Government should resile from those targets; nor will obsessing about marginal increases in output from the rapidly declining North Sea oil and gas reserves have any impact whatever on energy prices. I readily acknowledge that energy prices are too high both for industry and domestically, but I hope the Government will be brave on this and fundamentally reform our flawed energy pricing system, in which volatile gas prices can set the cost of homegrown renewable energy. So, no retreat on net zero—it has huge potential for growth. CBI analysis recently estimated it to be a £105 billion sector, generating highly skilled jobs across every part of the UK. A third factor in growth, for me, is getting young people into work. Alan Milburn’s seminal review identified nearly 1 million 16 to 24 year-olds who are not in education, employment or training, and of course behind those statistics lie stagnated aspirations and hopelessness. Over the past decade, the proportion who say they are NEET due to a work-limiting health condition has increased by 70%. Once health-related inactivity takes hold, moving those people into employment becomes incredibly challenging. In contrast to the Conservatives’ brutal approach to welfare, I believe we need a welfare system to protect those who cannot work and provide proper financial security for people with severe or enduring disabilities. But for young people who could participate with the right support, our welfare system should be a springboard to employment. That is why the Government’s emphasis on vocational education, with links into local industry, is so important, and that was a subject of an excellent debate earlier today led by my noble friend Lady Morgan. I am convinced that negative attitudes towards vocational education have bedevilled this country over decades, leading to an FE sector deprived of resources, where staff are underpaid compared with schoolteachers, and where a VAT burden is unfairly placed upon them—I hope my noble friend may have some good news in relation to that. There is no question in my mind that technical excellence needs to be recognised as being as valid as academic excellence. Encouraging and allowing young people to follow a skills route at 14 opens the gateway to huge opportunities. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, spoke eloquently in the earlier debate about the importance of technical education. Of all the social issues we face, for me the provision of adult social care is the most pressing. Its current shortcomings impact badly on the NHS, as can be seen from the spectacle of corridor care, delayed discharges and too many people admitted into hospital. I also echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, said in her July speech to the LGA when she argued that previous attempts at reform have failed because they have either tinkered with parts of the system or tried to push through changes without securing public consent for the tough choices involved, and there will be tough choices. The NHS needs to change as well. One reason—this comes from my personal experience with in-laws and my mother—that so many people are inappropriately in hospital is that, in too many cases, the NHS itself puts up barriers to treatment at home or in care homes, which forces people into A&E. We need the NHS to really start to shift that proposition. On the global stage, the Prime Minister is making the UK’s voice count. His decision to help Ukraine build long-range missiles is both encouraging and a sign of the UK’s unwavering support for that country. The global picture is one of increasing instability, as Mark Carney, the Canadian Premier, pointed out in his Davos speech last year. He said that “there is a rupture in the world order … we live in an era of great power rivalry”, with the rules-based order fading. In calling for co-operation among middle powers, Carney said that middle powers are not powerless: “They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of … states”. We have huge potential in the UK to co-operate with like-minded countries, and that of course must include the EU. On that, the Prime Minister emphasised the benefits of a closer UK-EU relationship, forging links on trade, security and economic growth. This of course very much links to defence. The 2025 strategic defence review was clear. It said: “For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the UK faces multiple, direct threats to its security, prosperity, and democratic values”. The UK is committed to reaching NATO’s target of 3.5% of GDP on defence by 2035. The defence investment plan has brought an additional £15 billion for defence over the period to 2029-30, on top of what was allocated in the 2025 spending review. Despite media comment over the last few days, the Chancellor has been consistent over the last few months that he would set a clear path to meeting our 3.5% NATO commitment at the next spending review and a target date for 3%. I just repeat the words of the Prime Minister and Chancellor when they said: “The determination that we share is to do what’s necessary to keep the country safe, and a recognition, quite simply, of that truism, that for any government the first duty is to keep citizens safe”. What else is there to say? I believe that our new Prime Minister offers us hope through strong intent and hard actions, actions to deliver economic growth, improve security, and provide better public services and relief from the cost of living increase. For all our problems and challenges, we as a country have very much to be proud of. We have so much going for us and it is that and the hope that the Prime Minister brings that underpin this Government’s programmes and priorities. I beg to move.
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.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I am sure we all wish Andy Burnham well in his new job as our Prime Minister. He is able to connect with people, is a good communicator and he listens. He has certainly said the right things and spoken honestly and with sincerity about the major issues that we face. But speaking about issues is the easy part; carrying out the actions and holding his and his Government’s nerve when the going gets tough is a very different matter. He was right to say that Brexit has had a devastating effect on our economy. It may be a bit of an understatement. I would also remind him, supportively, that if Labour at the time of Brexit had fully engaged with the remain campaign, rather than its then leader’s pipsqueak response, we would still be in and at the heart of Europe. As a result, GDP in the UK is 6% to 8% smaller than it should have been, and we have lost £90 billion a year in tax revenues. I look forward to the Government moving much closer to Europe on so many fronts and laying firm foundations to our eventually reapplying to join the EU. The Prime Minister is committed to properly funded social care provision and has reached out to other parties to work with him. How refreshing is this? My party, which has also championed this issue, will certainly do so. I remember when local authorities had the financial resources to open care homes for the elderly. We have seen how private equity companies have moved in on children’s homes. I do not want to see care homes being run by multinational companies; my hope instead is that they be run by LAs, charities and not-for-profit providers, which are part of the community. The duty of any Government is to protect its people and ensure that the economy is on a firm footing. Paying debt charges—borrowing charges—of between £300 million and £337 million every single day is mad. Just think what that money could be spent on. In financial education we teach children the dangers of interest charges. A “live now, pay later” economy is not what we should be having. To get the economy on an even keel will require nerves of steel, and tough decisions and tough choices will have to be made. Welfare spending is forecast to exceed £400 billion a year by the early 2030s. UK borrowing costs have risen sharply, with the 10-year gilt yield reaching 5.23% and the 30-year yield reaching 5.87%. We are being warned that we have halved the roughly £24 billion of fiscal headroom, while public spending is forecast to reach 44.9%. The world is a very dangerous place, and who would have thought there would be a war on our own doorstep. Putin’s Russia is pushing the boundaries all the time, whether through proxy agents or misinformation. As a nation we need to make sure that if, God forbid, there is armed conflict, we can protect ourselves and support others. In recent years our military has been hollowed out, leaving the Army and the Navy the smallest since the Napoleonic wars. We need to be able to commit to our contribution of 3.5% not by promises but by having identified the money upfront. My party suggested war bonds as a means of raising finance. I hope the Government will explore that option. Finally, I want to say how disgraceful it is that we are heading towards 1 million people not in school, training or a job. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on this. We cannot wait for Alan Milburn’s report: we must do something now.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
My Lords, the economist Keynes, upbraided for changing his view on some matters, allegedly responded with the phrase: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?” In the 26 months since the general election, the facts have changed. We have seen the US assault on Iran, the explosive growth of AI, the devastating impact of climate change—alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath—threatening harvests here while killing hundreds in Nepal and Tibet. Meanwhile, we stand closer to global war than at any time since my childhood. The facts have changed. Keynes changed his mind. He did not resign and reapply for his post; rather, he sought to win others to his revised opinions. I have heard it said that our new Prime Minister must stick to the 2024 Labour manifesto or go to the country, but that is not how I believe Parliament should work. We are a well-informed and reasonable House. Many of us—not least on my own Bench, and the Cross-Benchers—owe no allegiance to any party master. We swear our oath, as do all noble Lords, to the Crown. We will scrutinise whatever matters are brought before us with our usual diligence. I would, however, be surprised and alarmed if we withheld consent simply because a proposal reflected the context of 2026, not 2024. I turn to two specific points. I welcome what we heard from our Prime Minister about renewed efforts to tackle homelessness. My churches and other places of worship have been at the forefront of work on this, alongside the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. The scandals of rough sleeping, of children trying to access education while living in temporary accommodation, cannot be allowed to continue. Having recently chaired the Manchester social housing commission, I welcome a determination to build more social homes. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, I warm to the speeding up of the Casey review into social care. I pray that this time, we will end up with action, not just another report. I remember the Dilnot report, which I thought was a good thing at the time. But if we have to consider again in this House, as I suspect we will, matters such as assisted dying, at least we can do so in the context of a proper offer of palliative care to all, as the Prime Minister has said. Three years ago, I was privileged to stand alongside Mr Burnham when he and the faith leaders of Greater Manchester met Pope Francis. We did not just give Pope Francis a signed Manchester United football shirt; we also committed ourselves to our net-zero target. The climate emergency is not some woke middle-class distraction; it is destroying the lives and livelihoods of the poorest across the globe—those in the communities I meet when I visit my Anglican sisters and brothers in the global South—and it is an increasing drag on well-being and the household economy in Britain. This is, by its nature, a short debate, so I urge the Government to consider whether the best way to present fresh proposals to your Lordships’ House would be through a fresh Session of Parliament before the end of this year, so that His Majesty can set out a full programme before us and we can have a more substantial discussion at an early stage. I began with an economist and segued via a pope, so let me end with a Protestant theologian. Martin Luther, challenged by the inertia of so much of the church of his day, urged his followers on with the words: “If you must sin, sin boldly”. I urge our new Prime Minister and his Government to show similar boldness, and then let us here in this Chamber weed out any of it we judge to be a sin.
Lord Eatwell (Lab)
My Lords, economic growth is the Government’s prime objective. Growth provides the resources to fund all our national goals, from health to the police; from defence to a fair distribution of income. Central to the growth objective is investment. Rachel Reeves laid the foundations for a growing economy with a 12% increase in public investment this year, but on that foundation must be built a programme of increasing investment in science and technology—the inventive core of a competitive economy. Reflecting on the underlying strengths of Britain, politicians invariably cite our outstanding research universities, yet we now have daily reports of the financial difficulties being experienced by the university sector. We can debate the origins of those difficulties, but that is to look backwards. Looking forwards, we must ensure that the research universities thrive. They are Britain’s number one strength. That is why it was particularly distressing to learn on 9 July of the substantial cuts that are to be made to scientific research. By 2030, spending by the Science and Technology Facilities Council is to be cut by 15% in money terms, not even allowing for inflation. Research potentially impacted includes work on new cancer treatments and battery design. The national research laboratories face the tightest squeeze: their funding is to fall by over half. Those are the national labs that developed radar, the computer and high-strength carbon fibre. The touch screen of your mobile phone was invented at a British national research lab—the Royal Radar Establishment. The national labs undertake research that would never be done in the private sector because the risks and uncertainties are too great, and the initial market often non-existent. Yet discoveries in those labs, often by serendipity, have changed the world. Some research may, at first sight, appear irrelevant in the light of our economic problems—research in theoretical physics, for example—but that is a serious misconception. Consider, for example, the caesium atomic clock. Experimental physics developed at one of our national labs is now the basis of the timing of the internet and global navigation systems. Consider X-ray crystallography, a highly specialised branch of physics concerned with the arrangement of atoms. This technique now underpins genetic engineering, biotechnology and modern pharmaceuticals. More generally, consider the fact that, for years, this country’s finest mathematicians have worked on number theory, proving that the series of prime numbers is infinite, worrying about the minimum distance between primes, and so on. Totally abstract—yet, with the advent of digital computing, number theory is fundamental to all secure programming, including the programming of your mobile phone. If Britain is to rediscover its competitive strength, we must not reduce our commitment to science. We must not lose our lead in research areas. The 9 July cuts are a signal of the nation’s faltering commitment to industrial strength. I trust that in his speech scheduled for Monday, the Chancellor will be able to assure the country that the new Government will reverse the cuts of 9 July.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, a new report by Justice, a law reform charity, and King’s College London has found that survivors of the Home Office Windrush scandal who seek compensation should receive the same free legal support given to victims of the Post Office and infected blood scandals. The report points out that the Government have set up a series of compensation schemes in response to all three state injustices, yet Windrush victims have been denied free legal help with their claims. The Home Office, which runs the Windrush compensation scheme, has argued that the process is more straightforward than others and says it was designed to be accessible without free legal support. But the report found that the Windrush scheme is just as complicated as the others, involving assessments of historic laws, facts and evidence that are complex even for lawyers and judges. Recalling precise dates and sequences of events in the distant past can also prove challenging, particularly for very elderly claimants. Also, victims suffering from severe trauma may find it all too painful to engage with the scheme. Lawyers for Windrush claimants have described the process as torturous, blaming a culture of disbelief among Home Office staff for delays and unreasonable refusals. Post Office claimants have the option of taking a fixed compensation payment between £75,000 and £600,000 at the start of the process, allowing them to avoid the stress of providing detailed evidence to demonstrate their losses. But there is no equivalent option available to Windrush victims, who have to demonstrate their losses through a lengthy and complex claims process, with no funding provided for any expert evidence that may be needed. Windrush victims also find themselves at a disadvantage if they wish to challenge the compensation order, as the scheme lacks an independent appeals process, unlike the infected blood and Post Office schemes. There is no justification for treating Windrush claimants differently from other scandal victims. If the Prime Minister is serious about righting this historic injustice, he must level the playing field and give them the legal support they need and deserve. Yes, a Windrush commissioner has been appointed. But to improve fairness and accountability, the report calls for the provision of funded legal advice and the creation of an independent expert appeals body with the power to make binding compensation awards for the Windrush scheme. Given this new evidence for change, will the Government act on the findings of the Justice and King’s College London report to deliver a fairer and more accessible compensation scheme for the Windrush victims and survivors? The Windrush generation answered the call to come and rebuild Britain after the war. Surely the Government should now answer their call for justice and to restore trust. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, the values that drive the Government’s political priorities are Labour values, shared by the new Prime Minister and the former Prime Minister, to whom I also pay tribute. There has, however, been a very welcome change of tone and direction, building on the work of the last two years. I celebrate the hope, the optimism, the positivity and the determination to do politics differently. Our citizens want and deserve problem-solving rather than point-scoring, because that alienates people rather than encouraging them to engage. The cross-party talks over social care are a fine example of doing things differently—understanding that achieving consensus is a strength, not a weakness. The Prime Minister shows great courage in his resolve to address the desperately needed reform of social care. He has a very long-term interest in this, which is well known. There is a huge lack of workers in social care, with a vacancy rate of more than 8%. Will consideration be given to enabling more workers to come from overseas so that we can provide a better service in social care while it is being reformed? I agree with the Prime Minister’s analysis of the current situation in this country and the damage done to the fabric of our country and the economy, including by Brexit, which, as he said in the Commons, “compounded the damage, ushering in a decade of low growth and stalled regeneration ”.—[ Official Report , Commons, 1/9/26; col. 27.] His words will, I hope, give impetus to the UK-EU reset. The economic challenges are mighty. We are continually buffeted by global storms and people are suffering, but action is already being taken to address the lives of people, including the homeless. This is a moral but very practical mission. The right reverend Prelate spoke about homelessness. On the day that he became Prime Minister, before he went to the Palace, the Prime Minister went to the Passage, a homeless charity where he met people sleeping rough. In his speech outside No. 10, he pledged to end rough sleeping in England and, just last month, he announced immediate action to offer everyone who needs it a route off the streets by Christmas. Accommodation and support will be rolled out across England this winter, backed by £442 million of funding. Areas in the greatest need will receive the largest share of the money, with mayors working with councils to make decisions on delivering help where it is needed most. This, I believe, is devolution in action. Homelessness damages the lives of individuals and their physical and mental health, and it affects their dignity. It impacts on many areas of policy, not least the health of our nation. One in six people recalled to prison in breach of their licence is homeless. They have not committed a further offence; they simply do not have the roof over their heads that everyone deserves. If a person is homeless, they cannot get or sustain employment. If a child is in temporary accommodation, they cannot do their homework. Safe, affordable homes are vital. I warmly welcome the £10 billion pledge to build 70,000 homes in the first tranche of the social and affordable homes programme in England. It would indeed be great if they could be built near railway stations. This Government are radical and will act to ensure sustainable change for individuals and the country, galvanised by hope. To quote Bertrand Russell: “Man needs … hope and enterprise and change”.
Baroness Sheehan (LD)
My Lords, I am pleased that we are having this very necessary debate, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for moving it, not least because it gives me a chance to highlight my Private Member’s Bill targeting waste crime. It is a critical issue that I am delighted to say the Prime Minister himself has prioritised for action—not just words this time, we hope. Last year, the report on waste crime by your Lordships’ Environment and Climate Change Committee, which I chair, drew attention to the appalling illegal dump at Hoads Wood, a protected SSSI site in Kent. Despite persistent warnings from local residents to the council, the Environment Agency and the police, nothing was done. The week after our report appeared, the notorious Kidlington dump was discovered, with over 20,000 tonnes of illegal waste. These are not one-off cases. Numerous other super-sites continue to blight communities for years without intervention, not least the dreadful site in Bickershaw, Wigan, in the Prime Minister’s own constituency—that may have had something to do with the prioritisation; I do hope so. Around 38 million tonnes of waste are illegally managed each year. The waste services representative body, the Environmental Services Association, estimates lost tax revenue at £2 billion each year, which is double the official estimates. While criminals profit from this low-risk, high-reward enterprise, the financial burden of clean-up falls squarely on taxpayers and private landlords. Organised crime groups are comprehensively outmanoeuvring our enforcement bodies. To solve this crisis, we must trace the waste to its source and turn off the tap. Rather than continuously using public money to rectify environmental and community damage, my Private Member’s Bill—the Corporate Waste Responsibility Bill—addresses the problem at its roots. The Bill is simple. It holds large corporations legally and financially accountable for the waste they produce or control by, first, requiring large companies to designate a named director to be responsible for enforcing statutory waste duty of care compliance. That means overseeing the journey of the waste from its production to its final resting place. Secondly, it imposes direct financial liability on these corporations for the clearance and remediation of their waste whenever it is mismanaged and the duty of care standards are breached. By establishing clear board-level accountability and ensuring that businesses bear the financial responsibility for their waste, this legislation aims to halt illegal waste sites and dismantle waste crime before it begins. I hope the new Secretary of State and the Prime Minister will give it their support.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Hunt gave an eloquent introduction to this debate as to why we should support the Government’s political aims. I am a well-known Labour Party hack and I tend to vote for the Government on most occasions, but I have to admit that, in the early months of this Government, I had my doubts from time to time as to whether I totally shared what I thought were the political aims of this Government; for example, when we had the winter fuel payment crisis, the national insurance increases, and the tax on farmers, which has been one of the Treasury’s favourite things to do for years, although previous Ministers had resisted. However, I think the new Government under Andy Burnham have given us a new sense of purpose and direction. In general, I support the way in which they are going, but I would like some clear indication from my noble friend Lord Collins at the end of the debate that I am right so to do. I would like to have some commitments reaffirmed, in particular on net zero, because there has been some sniping, not just from the Opposition, various business interests, the petrostates and the United States, but from some within the Labour movement and others who would normally be supporting the Government. We must reiterate those objectives and our path to net zero must continue. That does not mean that there are not some compromises on the way, but the sense of direction and momentum need to continue and, if anything, be substantially enhanced. I think compromises along the lines that were advocated in the FT yesterday, on North Sea gas, might be sensible. But they should not stop the pace of switch to clean energy for the rest of this country. There are other priorities I would like to see emphasised more, and the way in which we are going to do them to be clearer, in particular on housing. The numbers involved in housing have been reiterated recently by Angela Rayner and I welcome that recommitment, but there are some serious problems in the delivery of those houses; I am interested particularly in the amount of social housing that will be produced. The industry suffers from a double problem of an oligopoly among the developers and housebuilders, which constrains the choices that local authorities and others have on housebuilding and the pace at which it can be delivered, and a lack of adequate skills in the construction sector. We need to have a clear commitment to address both those problems. We have just had a debate on employment, in which I and others emphasised the need for employment to be a serious priority for this Government, and how the coming Budget in six weeks’ time needs to be clear that employment, the quality of employment and the pace at which we can deliver jobs to the majority of our people need to be part of our economic policy. There is a lot of debate about the fiscal rules. Rules are constraints and standards; they are not objectives. Objectives of economic policy and economic growth need to increase and develop the employment of the people of this country and the quality of employment which is available to them and their successors. If the Government can reiterate their commitment on these fronts, I will continue in my support for as long as I am able.
Lord Redwood (Con)
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, that the national insurance increase and the farms tax were very bad ideas which did considerable damage. It is a pity that more noble Lords behind the Government did not make that clearer in time to avoid the disaster. I hope that the new Prime Minister and new Chancellor will have learned from the bitter experience of the two Reeves Budgets, which allowed a large amount of adverse speculation, threatening everyone who is successful or enterprising or who has some savings with higher taxes, and then the Government were surprised when confidence was knocked; then they put taxes on in the Budget, which do considerable damage, and we then ended up with higher unemployment, fewer job vacancies, cancelled and deferred investment projects and a lack of confidence in the business community. We need the opposite of all those things, and I wish the new Prime Minister well if he can translate his TikTok optimism into a genuine set of policies which will promote enterprise, business, jobs and success, which are what is needed in this country. As someone who has had conversations with and offered advice to a series of Prime Ministers and Chancellors on the Conservative side from Margaret Thatcher onwards, I have had the chance to observe at quite close quarters what has succeeded and quite often what does not succeed, and I have tried to learn from those experiences. I will share this piece of advice with the new Treasury team: take the bond market seriously. You may not like it and you may think it is wrong, but you are going to find it very difficult to argue with it. Those very high costs of government borrowing now are a message. They are saying that the tax option is no longer there. Put taxes up more and you may even collect less revenue. They are saying that the spending is too high. You need to look at the benefits bill, as my noble friend the leader of the Conservatives in this House and our right honourable friend the leader of the Opposition have set out in considerable detail, describing how sensible, modest cuts and proposals would help—and by all means accelerate the work on how you can get more young people into work by positive means and get them off benefits, because that is crucial. However, look at those interest rates. Labour made a lot of fuss when for one day under Liz Truss there was a spike to quite high levels in government borrowing costs, and some of them still carry on. I do not think they have understood that for the whole of 2025 and now for the whole of 2026 to date, government borrowing costs have been considerably higher than that one-day spike under Liz Truss. If the Truss spike was wrong, they are gratuitously wrong on an extended basis. There are two differences in the situation. The Truss Government did not borrow a penny at that very high rate on the spike day; this Government are borrowing, day after day and week after week, at these very elevated rates, which are at least 20% higher than the worst rate under Liz Truss. The Government have not persuaded the Bank of England to stop selling bonds into a very depressed market, whereas the thing that got the rates back down again after the Truss Budget—which was spending too much—was of course the Bank of England stopping, for a period, selling the bonds at very depressed prices. The Government need to get a grip on that because they are doing themselves and us grave damage. I want this country to succeed, I want a strong, fast-growing economy, and I want those young people back into work. That takes lower interest rates, not higher interest rates, and it takes proper fiscal discipline. Spouting about fiscal rules does not work. You have to do the hard work and get the Budget into more balance.
Baroness Keeley (Lab)
My Lords, I want to focus on the Government’s priorities on creative education and the importance of making changes to improve the uptake of music education in state schools. I warmly welcome the Government’s acceptance of the curriculum and assessment review recommendations, including the removal of the Ebacc performance measure. This gives us the vital opportunity to rebalance education in our state schools and to support creative subjects and pathways, which have suffered a serious decline since 2010. The Cultural Learning Alliance—CLA—has reported since 2024 on what it described as a “denuded Arts education landscape”. It has highlighted the erosion of arts provision in state schools and argued that the narrowing of subject choices through the EBacc led to a systematic devaluing of arts subjects and experiences. In 2024, the CLA reported that the take-up of arts GCSEs had fallen by 42% since 2010. As the curriculum and assessment review highlighted, music has the highest disadvantage gap of any GCSE subject. It is deeply concerning that an “Arts entitlement gap” persists in state schools, with socio-economic background remaining a major determinant of arts participation at 14, 16 and 18. Schools in the most deprived fifth of local authorities are more likely to have no entries in some arts GCSEs. Fifty-four percent of state schools in those areas have no GCSE music entries, compared with only 21% in the least deprived authorities. Similarly, the most disadvantaged regions have the lowest A-level arts take-up. While welcoming the Government’s ambition to revitalise arts education, the CLA has warned us that “the long tail of EBacc damage … will continue to impact subject choices at Key Stage 4” and post-16. Last night, I was at an event of the excellent Royal Philharmonic Society where they had convened the enormously talented trio of the cellist, Sheku Kannah-Mason, the horn player, Ben Goldscheider, and the saxophonist, Jess Gillam, for a discussion about music, in advance of their expected Prom on Sunday. These young musicians, who are among our most talented, were worried that music education is not in a great place and said, “It’s not what it was”. Like many musicians, they do what they can to support music in our schools, but they cannot, as individuals, solve the issues. It falls to us in this place to create a better future for both arts and music education in our state schools. I am indebted to Professor Adam Whittaker and Dr Anthony Anderson for their research on disadvantaged-related attainment gaps in music education. From their work, I learned the disturbing fact that, in 18 local authorities, either only one school offers a music qualification—A-level or vocational—or, in the worst cases, no school does. These authorities include Knowsley, Hartlepool, South Tyneside, Rochdale, Salford and Tameside, as well as four London boroughs. This decline in music education must be reversed if we are serious about protecting the talent pipeline which we have in this country into our universities, conservatoires, orchestras and our successful music industry. This Labour Government have rightly committed to removing the EBacc performance measure, but we now face the task of rebuilding music education, particularly in state schools serving our most deprived communities. In your Lordships’ House, we can continue to press DfE Ministers to reverse this decline—which happened of course under Conservative Governments—by rebuilding the music teacher workforce and restoring the bursary for music teacher training. We have talked a lot in this debate about hope. My hope is that, under this Government and with this new PM, every young person, whatever their background, has the chance to choose music.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Hunt on his excellent introduction to this debate. I first met our new Prime Minister when he was a special adviser in the first term of the Blair Government. He was a great friend of the man with whom I shared an office in No. 10, James Purnell, who is now his chief of staff. It is a very nice thought that, 28 years later, they are working together to try to run the country. I have always liked Andy Burnham. I have always thought he was a man with social Catholic values—if I wanted to describe it simply. I am not from that background, but I appreciate the people who are. I want to make just one or two points—which no one else has mentioned, really—about the political reforms that Andy Burnham seems to have in mind. I am a passionate supporter of devolution. I think it will have a growth dividend, not in the immediate term but in 10 years or so. The Government should be bold on this subject. They should try to devolve real financial powers to mayoralties, and they should enable the big mayors to borrow money to finance financial projects they think are worth while. As someone who in my political life has spent 20 years on local authorities, I would also like to see a great emphasis on reviving local government, probably with some reform of council tax—again, a long-term project, but Burnham has talked about land value taxation—and getting rid of capping, which restrains what local authorities can do and has basically destroyed the independence of local government. I also believe that the Prime Minister is right to say that our politics needs reform. I believe in politicians working together. We cannot address long-term issues that we face, such as social care and climate change, unless we establish some degree of political consensus. Electoral reform is one way of doing this. Thirdly, the Prime Minister is a strong pro-European. One thing I admired about him was that he came out and said that Brexit has been a disaster—and it has been a disaster. The starting point for putting that right is to be honest with the public about what the losses have been. That is the crucial thing that Burnham is doing in his approach to Europe, and while it is right that he sticks to Labour’s manifesto pledges that were made for this Parliament, at some point we should be bold about what the objective we are seeking on Europe is, and I hope he will have the courage to do that.
Lord Frost (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, raised the question of Europe, because it probably will not surprise those listening to learn that I intend to say a word about that, too. I intend to say a word about it not just because I am deeply interested in it but because the new Government, the Prime Minister and his Ministers do not seem to have said a huge amount about this subject, either in the Prime Minister’s Statement earlier this week or in PMQs. Policy has swung around a bit. We heard during the Makerfield by-election that the PM wants to rejoin, and perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, hopes that that will be the outcome of this rethink one day. Since then, the Government have retreated from it. The noble Baroness the Leader of the House yesterday said: “We are not going to rerun the argument on Brexit in the near future ”.—[ Official Report , 2/9/26; col. 180.] I suppose that leaves open the question of what “in the near future” actually means. There seems a degree of uncertainty. On the one hand, the Government are claiming, as we just heard, that Brexit caused damage, and the Prime Minister said that too. Yet, at the same time, they are using and talking up the benefits of leaving the EU. As the noble Lord, Lord True, said yesterday, the Government are cutting VAT, which would not have been possible in the European Union, and the new Trade Minister, who gave an excellent maiden speech—I say that even though he is not in his place now—was out earlier this week celebrating accession to the CPTPP as a fantastic new opportunity for British business. Of course, none of that would be happening if we had not left the European Union. So, I am left a bit uncertain, I must admit, as to how the EU really fits into the hierarchy of priorities for the new Government. We have a new Minister in charge of the negotiations. What are we supposed to read into that? All this uncertainty means it is sometimes a little unclear what is meant by comments on the reset. For example, the PM said this week that the country needs a good deal for farming. What does that mean? I thought there already was a deal for farming—it was announced in the summit last year. Does that mean he is doubtful about this deal? Is he uncertain that some of the protections—the carve-outs—that are needed will be secured in the negotiations? We simply do not know any of this, and that is the problem. It is well beyond time for the Government to give a proper account of where things stand. The summit was over a year ago now, and each time there is an event or meeting in Brussels, it seems that the Government give away something, whether it is joining the ETS or the single electricity market. We learned this spring that concessions on student fees are in play, the nature of the youth mobility scheme, and so on. It is not clear what we are getting back from any of this. I can tell you from my experience that the much-vaunted eGate access has not yet been delivered. Perhaps other noble Lords have had the same experience this summer. Arguably, the situation for British travellers is worse than it was a year ago. The Government need to come clean about where things stand in this rather amateurish, Keystone Cops-style negotiation. We do not need a running commentary, but we do need a Statement on what the Government are trying to achieve. Will the Minister ask his ministerial colleagues to come to this House, or to the other place, and tell us what their approach to this negotiation is? What are they trying to do? Where are they trying to get to? Meanwhile, will the Government stop being pushed around and start standing up for the people and businesses of this country?
Baroness Gill (Lab)
My congratulations to my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on securing this debate. This Government’s agenda marks a fundamental shift in how power and capital are distributed across the United Kingdom, positioning my old European constituency of the West Midlands and the second city of Birmingham as central drivers of national growth. By sweeping away decades of bureaucratic inertia and empowering the West Midlands to control its own wealth, transport and housing, the Government are unleashing the true potential of Britain’s industrial heartland. I welcome that this Government are implementing a structural strategy to rewire the state through radical fiscal devolution and targeted regional investment through a multi-year £2.5 billion integrated settlement, and a committed 10-year retention of local business rates valued at £45 million annually. The Government are also granting the West Midlands Combined Authority and the mayor unprecedented financial autonomy. This will allow the region to manage its infrastructure independently, shifting funding away from rigid competitive bidding systems. This autonomy is already driving visible outcomes in local infrastructure, such as backing a rapid transition to bring the West Midlands bus network back under local public control, supported by a £35 million bus service improvement plan grant, which will work alongside the nationwide £2 single fare cap to lower commuting costs and link residents directly to employment plans, as my noble friend Lord Hunt outlined earlier. I turn now to a subject closer to my heart: the regional housing crisis. The Government have injected a landmark £1.7 billion into West Midlands social housing. This funding scales up the region’s existing affordable housing framework, which has already surpassed targets by delivering 7,237 new homes in its first localised phase. However, to solve this housing crisis, we must look at the entire life cycle of a home, and I urge the Government and the Minister here today to help older homeowners, the empty nesters, to downsize and free 15 million surplus bedrooms. Therefore, I urge the Minister to consider a targeted exemption of stamp duty. On a household level, the abolition of the 5% VAT rate on domestic electricity bills offers immediate financial breathing room to families across the West Midlands. Crucially, the economic strategy focuses on high-value industrial revival. The newly formed Midlands defence growth deal integrates local academic institutions, advanced manufacturing firms and regional government into a single ecosystem. This initiative aims to inject billions into local supply chains and create 38,000 highly skilled engineering and technology jobs across the region. To sustain this growth, the Government are introducing the West Midlands Works initiative, a comprehensive, 10-year employment plan designed to train and place 93,000 residents into stable, high-quality jobs. This is supported by an educational shift that grants 14 year-olds early access to technical qualification pipelines and direct employment needs. This agenda is a 10-year blueprint for economic resilience. It is a sharp break from the managed decline of the past, a definitive blueprint to ensure that the engine room of the UK economy is finally fired up, self-sustaining and built to win.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, I wish to discuss two crucial components of the Prime Minister’s programme for growth: the devolution agenda in England and our relationship with the EU. For decades, I have advocated greater devolution of powers to Yorkshire, so I greatly welcome moves to shift decision-making out of Whitehall. I have, however, two principal concerns over what the Government are currently proposing. First, while it is relatively clear how an existing large mayoral authority such as Birmingham or Manchester could be given and realistically manage greater powers, the position elsewhere is very much less clear-cut. The Prime Minister has said that devolution deals will be possible even without an elected mayor, as may happen in Cornwall, but if there are a plethora of types of devolved authority, as there inevitably will be, this has the potential for considerable muddle and confusion. While the PM has a pretty good idea how his new settlement will benefit Manchester, I simply do not believe that any such clarity exists for much of the rest of England. In North Yorkshire, for example, where I live, expectations have been raised, but it is as yet completely unclear under current proposals how they might be realised. Secondly, the Prime Minister has said that, under the new “No. 10 North” arrangements, he will be the person in charge of driving the growth agenda. In the short term this may be good news, in that only prime ministerial authority is likely to be able to prise powers away from the Treasury; but in the longer term, it is worrying. What happens if the next Prime Minister has a constituency hundreds of miles from Manchester, and, unlike today—with no fewer than nine members of the Cabinet having constituencies within an hour’s travel from Manchester—both he and his senior colleagues have other priorities? The present institutional changes do not look robust enough to survive such a scenario, and the whole devolution agenda therefore appears to be built on pretty shaky foundations. Although the ill-fated Department of Economic Affairs of the 1960s has given the idea of a separate ministry for growth a bad name, it seems implausible that, without some such permanent body, a significant long-term focus on growth of the kind the Prime Minister is promoting will be maintained. The other element of the growth agenda relates to our relations with Europe. The Prime Minister has said little about the EU. In his Statement, he said only that Brexit had economically been very damaging, which is hardly news, but the new Government do not appear to have any new substantive proposals for strengthening our economic relationship with the EU. The Prime Minister appears to recognise that, unless we move towards the single market and the customs union, hopes for strong growth in the EU are likely to be mere pipe dreams, yet there seems to be no real ambition to move in that direction. I wish the new Prime Minister well and I support much of what he is trying to achieve, but I am afraid that as yet I am unconvinced that he has well thought-out plans for doing so.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on bringing this debate. I also want to apologise to him, because I am always surprised by how passionately he talks about climate change. That is on me. Sorry about that. It is wonderful to listen to. I have met the new Prime Minister a few times and I have a lovely photograph on my phone of him and me at Glastonbury last year. I sort of thought we could work together, but the more I see what is happening and going through, the more I am beginning to think it will not be possible. It seems as if the slow-moving, stagnant mechanism of government has got its claws into him and he is not thinking very creatively any more. I hope I am wrong. We shall see over the next few weeks and months. I want to mention three things that are crucial for the future of this Labour Government, which will all help society as well as the environment. We have to accept that climate chaos is the new normal. Thousands of people died this summer in the heat and that is going to keep happening if we are not very careful about adapting to it. People arriving at A&E with heat exhaustion and so on is also going to be the new normal. This Government must not make it worse by going ahead with the Jackdaw gas field and Rosebank oil field. That is folly. What they should be doing is what they have just scrapped—putting solar panels on every supermarket car park and every roof, everywhere they possibly can. That is the sort of thing they ought to be doing to be creative about combating climate change. We need to adapt to hot summers. A tiny measure would be to put shutters on all the windows, as in France. I have lots of ideas and I am quite happy to chat them through. The second thing is to help save the NHS, not by privatising it but by remembering that prevention is better than cure. If you cut pollution, you cut the number of people going into hospital. You cut the number of children whose lungs are so stunted by pollution that they have lifelong problems with their breathing. Well done to Sadiq Khan here in London, where he has massively cut air pollution. We should have low emission zones across the whole country, as they do in mainland Europe. Thirdly, one big way to reduce pollution would be to take the water companies into public ownership. The Prime Minister mentioned those words yesterday. I would like to think he means renationalisation, but I do not know any more, because he keeps changing his mind. I have stopped paying the sewage part of my bill. I asked Thames Water how much that part was. I was happy to pay for the water, obviously, but I was not prepared to pay for the sewage it was dumping in the Thames. It told me that it did not work out the bill like that, so at the moment I am not paying my bill. We will see if it takes me to court before it goes bankrupt. We stopped the poll tax with a campaign of non-payment. Civil disobedience is possibly the only way to fight companies such as the water companies which are operating in a way that is a disbenefit to the whole of society. I say to the Government that the Green Party always has loads of very practical ideas and I am very happy to share them.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
It is a treat to be able to take part in this debate. I will talk about the Government’s programme on pensions, where the scale of what is being undertaken and what is potentially in prospect is far greater than people appreciate. We have already had one pensions Bill. I did not agree with everything in it, but it is leading to major changes in the way that pensions are provided. We have, in a sense, seen the end of a 30-year experiment in personal pensions. Pensions are becoming collective, and the emphasis on collective defined contribution schemes, the consolidation of existing arrangements, the removal of small pots and so on signifies a significant change in the way that pensions are being provided. We have also seen the Government introduce measures that could help members and employers with the release of so-called scheme surpluses. That is another debate, but the money is there and should be used productively to grow the economy and improve members’ benefits. We have issues specifically in relation to personal pensions, where existing arrangements can now be consolidated and provide more effective investment arrangements for individuals. We are also getting what are called default pathways for retirement. The biggest and hardest problem in pensions is what to do, if you are in a defined contribution arrangement, with the money at retirement. The Government are taking good action there to ensure that people have straightforward arrangements to achieve a decent income in retirement. That is all important, but we now have the Pensions Commission. Although the Government have made no formal commitment, we know that the commission’s timetable permits another pensions Bill, to which I look forward with some relish, not in the current Session but in the next one, and that will have to address the issue of adequacy. That is the missing part of the debate; it is what the commission has been set up to establish, and it is what we will have to confront. I think there will be big debates over that. At the same time, we will have to take decisions about the state retirement age. Governments of both sides have, in practice, dodged the decision there. I have strong views that are maybe not in line with those held by many. The challenge is to provide incomes for people who can no longer work as ably as younger people, so the retirement age is clearly an issue. The third and final leg of that debate will be state pension increases. What is going to follow the triple lock? Just saying “keep the triple lock” does not satisfy the need to get a stable financial system. We have to have that debate. I am afraid that, so far, people have sought to dodge that debate rather than address it.
Baroness Hazarika (Lab)
My Lords, one thing that I felt incredibly encouraged by with our new Prime Minister was the fact that he seemed to come here with an outside lens, because he has been away from Westminster for 10 years. When he came into Westminster, he was able to voice a lot of the frustrations that we all share in our lives. We all hear it from our friends and our neighbours. I, as a radio presenter, hear it a lot from my listeners. Lots of people outside just cannot get their head around why we here in Westminster continually, decade after decade, fail to get things done for this country. I think tribalism is holding back much of the success of this country. I really like one of the things that the Prime Minister said, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, alluded, about problem-solving over point-scoring. I am very proud to be associated with these Benches, but I try to look at things with fairness and not be tribal. In that spirit, I begin by saying that I profoundly disagree with people on my own side who dismiss the Russian threat as being nothing but NATO fiction. That is absolutely not the case. These threats are real and they are here. Look at Leipzig Airport just in the last few days. I really hope that we can work across politics to build a national conversation about the threats and about the psychology we might need to face if things escalate, and resilience. We need to think about bringing back the War Book to make sure local authorities are properly prepared. Defence has got to be a priority. Of course, growth must be a priority as well. We can get captured in these torturous, polarised discussions around the economy, where the right say, “Just cut welfare”, and the left say, “Just raise taxes”. We all know that just doing both of those things is not going to give us the result we want. We have to have a more intelligent conversation. We need growth and to help small and medium-sized businesses. I really hope that this new Chancellor in particular will seek to make life a bit better. We have heard this phrase “breathing space”; let us give a bit of breathing space to some of our small businesses around the country. Another reason why I think people feel dismayed with the country right now is that they look around and feel that the social contract is broken, because of what is happening in their communities. There is a lot of anti-social behaviour. It is called low-level crime, but it is not low-level because of the blight that it causes to the lives of so many people. Just look at what has been happening in Middlesbrough; that story is replicated all around the country. Shops have become a war zone for people: I am sure we will be hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Walker, about the excellent work that he does with Iceland; and the noble Lord, Lord Barber, has talked very eloquently about the pressures that shop workers face. A lot of people feel that the country does not work for them because they see it in their high streets and in their everyday world. I want to end on this kind of tonal note. I think we all have a responsibility to try to fix this country. I could be very tribal, and we could all point-score and slag each other off, but we are not going to succeed until we find some common ground. We on the left often get accused of virtue signalling—sometimes that does have some merit and sometimes we do go over the top—but some on the other side can be accused of vice signalling. Be honest: making disabled people poorer is not going to make us a richer, happier society, but we have to get more people who can work into work, as well. This is a very timely debate. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and I look forward to the rest of the contributions.
Lord Oates (LD)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the excellent, eloquent speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, which I agree with entirely. Today, I want to focus on the justice system and, in particular, the contrast between the crisis in the adult justice system and the many successes achieved by creative policy-making in the youth justice system. The prisons, as we read every day, are overflowing. The courts have huge backlogs, with cases currently being listed as far ahead as 2029 and 2030. Recalls to prison are at unprecedented levels. Some 51,000 prisoners were recalled in the 12 months to March—a 28% increase on the year before. In the January to March quarter, more prisoners were recalled than were released for the first time ever and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said, many of these cases are not because of people committing new offences; they are people who have chaotic lives after being released from prison and perhaps have not attended a probation hearing or whatever. We really need to get to grips with that. Prisoner releases have become the latest political football to be kicked to and fro. This is a problem we all own; all our parties own it. Over the past decades, we have had a legacy of rhetoric driving up sentence length and prison numbers despite falling crime rates. This has been combined with a failure to build the prison places required to soak up the inevitable outcome of that sort of increase in sentencing levels. But that is not necessary at all. This is not normal. Our levels of incarceration are not normal. We do not have higher crime levels, on average, than most of our European counterparts, yet we are incarcerating people at double the rate of places such as Germany and at an even higher rate compared with the Scandinavian countries. By contrast, the youth justice system is one of the greatest public policy successes of the past 30 years. It is the subject of my Private Member’s Bill, which will have its Second Reading next Friday so, like my noble friend Lady Sheehan, I am taking the opportunity to raise some of the points here, as some noble Lords might not be able to be there next week. When I worked at the Youth Justice Board shortly after it came into existence, the number of children in the juvenile secure estate peaked at over 3,500. In June this year, there were fewer than 350 in the secure estate—a reduction that has been achieved while youth crime has reduced. That is a remarkable achievement by any standard, particularly when the adult system was going in the opposite direction. It was achieved by the creative, innovative policy-making of the 1997 Labour Government in establishing the Youth Justice Board and the youth offending teams. One might have expected the incoming Government to seek to apply some of the lessons of the youth justice system to the crisis of the adult system. Instead, they have chosen to abolish the Youth Justice Board in all but name. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred to Treasury old favourites. This is an old favourite of the Ministry of Justice and the Treasury, and it should be resisted. I hope that the new Prime Minister will take a new approach to this.
Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Con)
My Lords, the Government have told us repeatedly that their number one priority is growth, and I am sure that every single one of us in this House would wholeheartedly back that aim. But I am afraid that there is a startling gap between those words and a real understanding of the people who create that growth. As we know on this side of the House, wealth is not created in Whitehall or No. 10 North; it is created when somebody takes a risk, when an entrepreneur decides to start a business, to put their own or their family’s capital at risk, to take on another member of staff, to buy a new plant or equipment or to make a new investment—or when an international investor chooses Britain rather than somewhere else. Increasingly, those people are looking around the world and making choices about where to invest. That matters because our public finances are extraordinarily dependent on a relatively small number of taxpayers. In our country, the top 1% of income tax payers contribute around 28% of all income tax. This is not the usual scare story about millionaires leaving Britain; I am not talking about that. I am talking about the fact that, when a wealthy person leaves Britain, we potentially lose a disproportionately large taxpayer, as well as an investor, employer or entrepreneur. The Office for Budget Responsibility itself has warned about this. It has warned of our increasing reliance upon this small and very mobile group of taxpayers. It has flagged it as a fiscal risk for the Government. The company BDO found that two-thirds of ultra-high-net-worth individuals surveyed had considered leaving the UK for tax reasons during the previous year. I know that many of us have seen that in our own personal lives. We all have friends and acquaintances and know young people who are thinking in that way, unfortunately. To me, the most interesting finding was not just that those people said their priority was having lower tax, but that they prioritised certainty and stable government. That really should tell the Government something. Part of the problem, unfortunately, is the lack of business experience. Private sector and entrepreneurial experience are at the heart of government. If your experience is just of politics and the private sector or NGOs, it is so easy to think about business as a cash cow that can be milked, as though it will not change its behaviour and will continue filling the Treasury’s coffers. Anyone who has run a business knows that there comes a point when the numbers do not add up, the investment is not made, the extra person is not employed. You do not get 40% of a greater pot; you just get a smaller pot, and the business goes bust and ceases to exist. We all agree that successful people should pay more tax, and they are. But there is a fundamental difference between taxing wealth once it has been created and creating the conditions for successful businesses to start in the first place, whereby people actually want to create that wealth. Capital is mobile; talented people do have choices. Every founder who chooses an overseas country is going to bring wealth and growth to that country, not ours. That is where we are losing out in revenues to our public sector. There are only two ways of improving our public finances: we can keep asking those people to pay more, or we can make the economy bigger. There is nothing bad about wealth creation; we should be encouraging it. It is the only way we get better hospitals, schools, roads and everything else people want to see. The Government say they want growth: they must demonstrate that they understand the people who create it.
Lord Walker of Broxton (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as executive chairman of Iceland Foods and of Bywater. As the former Prime Minister’s cost of living champion, I advocated targeted help for families who could not absorb soaring bills, and it is good to see some of those ideas come to fruition. But that is just applying a sticking plaster; we cannot cure the underlying disease with yet another subsidy or benefit. This Government’s top priority must be getting Britain back to work. One in every seven households has no one in work: not a single adult earning a wage. A million children live in long-term workless homes, more than a quarter of those in households where no one, not once, has ever worked. Now is the time to turn things around by giving businesses the confidence to invest. Our new Prime Minister says he wants a pro-business Government. He needs the courage to deliver on that. Start with the October Budget, shift the tax burden away from jobs and productive investment, cut the cost of employing people and give more high street businesses relief on rates. A growing private sector will do more to relieve poverty than any support programme ever can. Now is the time to make brave decisions on welfare and, dare I say it, the triple lock. I started my business career in Poland and have watched with admiration as it has grown almost as rich per capita as Britain. Indeed, it is soon likely to overtake us. We should follow its formula: encourage investment, build infrastructure, develop skills, attract businesses and pursue integration into global supply chains. As a father I am horrified that, as we have heard, we have almost 1 million 16 to 24 year-old NEETs. We are complicit in allowing them to enter adulthood without the structure, confidence, skills, friendships and sense of purpose that only work can provide. Of course I believe that the state must support those who are ill, disabled or otherwise unable to work. But the welfare state should be a safety net and a springboard, not a system that leaves people who can work parked on benefits. We need to create a smoother pathway from school into work, meaning more apprenticeships, vocational training and work experience. The Prime Minister’s focus on creating more work placements is welcome, but businesses will deliver far more if the barriers that currently deter them from hiring are simply removed. This means lowering the cost of creating jobs, helping businesses invest in skills, cutting red tape and making sure that work always pays. Do that and Britain will get a triple dividend. People will move from welfare to wages, and the benefits bill will fall while tax revenues rise. Businesses will gain the people and skills they need to grow, and a generation currently being offered too little hope will get a stake in our country’s future. Britain cannot redistribute its way to prosperity. Like Poland, we must build our way there.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for securing this debate, and I welcome his contribution. I will focus on energy and climate. This Government have an opportunity for a reset. The British people support change, but this Government have to do more to enable it. Nowhere is that clearer than on energy. Labour deserves credit for delivering enough renewable energy, through two successful record-breaking auctions, to supply the equivalent of 23 million homes. However, our energy bills remain among the highest in Europe. There has been no fundamental energy market reform. The Climate Change Committee’s citizens’ panel shows that people support the transition to net zero, provided the Government play their part: grants for heat pumps, better public transport and EV charging, and clear phase-out dates. Yet heat pumps and electric vehicles remain well behind target and too expensive for far too many. The transition being offered is not yet affordable, equitable or fair. Greenpeace UK’s Power Shift report, for example, shows that moving gas-fired power stations into a strategic reserve could save households and businesses £5.1 billion a year by 2028—a £65 saving off the average household bill. We need cheaper electricity by removing levies, and we need a social tariff. The new Energy Secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, is a trained economist and former chief of the New Economics Foundation. That gives me hope that she will grasp the urgent need for fundamental energy market reforms. Labour must do more to back community energy so that everyone can participate in and benefit from the energy transition. Europe is the fastest-warming continent on earth, and we are not prepared. Summer 2026 was the UK’s hottest on record. It was made around 130 times more likely by human-induced climate change. England had its driest July ever. Across Europe, extreme heat was linked to at least 35,000 excess deaths. The UK Health Security Agency estimated that 2,877 deaths occurred in the May and June heatwaves alone. The London Ambulance Service recorded its busiest day in its history on 26 June. Nurses fainted in hospital wards where temperatures exceeded 30 degrees—conditions the Royal College of Nursing called “inhumane”. The UK is on track for its worst harvest since records began, threatening our food security and pushing up prices. The Climate Change Committee’s 2025 adaption report found that not a single outcome is rated as good. Adaption has been forgotten by all Governments. The time when we can afford to forget is over. Nature remains the missing element in this Government’s agenda. Confused policies, compounded by poor communications, erode trust. Wildfires worsen every year. The National Fire Chiefs Council has called for an emergency summit and greater resources. A Written Answer to me confirmed that the UK is entirely dependent on commercial aviation to fight wildfires; that has to change urgently before the super El Niño arrives. Mega-fires are on our doorstep, and we are not prepared to contain them. The UK cannot lead globally while cutting overseas aid. We need a road map back to 0.7%. Ed Miliband must show that this Government take global climate finance seriously. The British people overwhelmingly accept the reality of our warming planet and support change. The Government must enable that change. Labour must take people with them and work with them, not do things to them. The transition must work for everyone, or it will work for no one.
Baroness Nargund (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Hunt on securing this important debate, and on his excellent opening speech. On entering No. 10, our new Prime Minister said: “Let’s make this the moment when Britain starts to believe again—the moment we bring back hope”. That has been mentioned several times today. That spirit was clear in his commitment during the Recess to tackling social care through cross-party talks. What is striking about this Government’s priorities is their willingness to confront Britain’s hardest problems head-on, placing the country first. Health now needs a similar approach. The manifesto commitment promising a fairer Britain where everyone lives well for longer, when we have the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions in our country, has never been more urgent. A child born in Richmond upon Thames can now expect nearly 20 more years in good health than one born in Hartlepool or Blackpool. A recent campaign by Health Equals has revealed a gap between postcodes of 18 years between the longest and shortest life expectancy in the UK. The DHSC alone cannot close these gaps, and we should stop treating it as if it is the sole responsibility of the National Health Service. There is now an irrefutable case for a cross-governmental health board or a Cabinet sub-committee reporting directly to the Prime Minister, chaired by a senior Cabinet Minister and, crucially, with strong regional representation. Devolution offers a brilliant opportunity to deliver this in every region. The Health Bill now in the other place offers a genuine opportunity to put that understanding to work. Health does not start in the NHS; it starts where we are born, where we live and where we work, and depends on whether we can access decent housing. That is why the Prime Minister’s pledge to end homelessness is so significant. Homelessness is not simply a housing failure; it is one of the starkest health inequalities we have. The Social Housing Bill, giving the tools to build more social homes locally, is not just an answer to our housing and homelessness crisis; it is a preventive health intervention. I will leave noble Lords with one further thought: if the health of people in the north of England matched that of those in the rest of England, it could generate an additional £18.4 billion a year to the UK economy. This is not just a moral case; it is an economic one. Health needs to be at the heart of the Government’s priorities and central to their legislative agenda, giving power back to local communities and tackling the health disparities that hold our country back. That is why I back all these priorities wholeheartedly. Labour created the NHS to care for our health; it is now Labour that can strengthen the NHS by tackling what creates ill health in the first place. Will the Government consider setting up a cross-governmental health board or a Cabinet sub-committee to address the wider determinants of health and to create a more equal Britain?
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness—
Baroness Rafferty (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Nargund. The Prime Minister reiterated his commitment to social care in his response to questions on his Statement to the Commons on Tuesday. While we wait for the recommendations from the review by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, there are opportunities to build on the important steps the Government have already taken to raise the profile of, and boost much-needed capacity in, social care nursing. One of the signal achievements of the previous Administration was the passage of the Employment Rights Act and, within that, the establishment of the fair pay agreement. The potential impact of this development should not be underestimated. It seeks to elevate the status, as well as the terms and conditions, of those working in social care, shining a light on those on the margins of care with no representation or negotiating power to improve their lot. This is to be welcomed as the social care sector employs some 1.5 million people. It has a huge economic footprint, even though most workers earn just above the minimum wage—“poverty pay”, as the Prime Minister commented on Tuesday. I argue that the potential to boost the earning power and the career and professional development of social care workers, and therefore the attractiveness of one of the largest sectors of employment in the UK, is the adult equivalent of reducing child poverty by removing the two-child cap. Let us also not forget that most care workers are women, and any boost to wages can bolster household incomes. The fair pay agreement could provide a much-needed stimulus for nursing reform. The most recent estimates from Skills for Health record some 37,000 nurse registrants in the sector. Concentrated mainly in care homes, registered nurses carry heavy responsibilities. Adult social care pay has lagged far behind that of the NHS. This fair pay agreement will hopefully link responsibility to reward and begin to align social care pay with that of the NHS.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I have two minutes so I will be brief. First, on UK debt and financing it, as my noble friend Lady Coffey put so well, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, spent half his speech talking about the Opposition and, for whatever reason, certain noble Lords opposite wish to attribute to them the current national debt pile. It is there, it is not going away and simply blaming others for its existence and looking backwards, not forwards, solves zero. It is critical that it is reduced by every Government. The noble Baronesses, Lady Hazarika and Lady Royall, were spot on when they said that this is about problem-solving together, not point-scoring. My noble friend Lord Redwood knows what he is talking about. You need to respect the global bond markets. Bond yields and financing costs are at multidecade highs. The Prime Minister has spent the summer making welcome spending commitments but without explaining in any shape or form how they will be funded. We need clarification. If the markets have certainty, borrowing costs will be lowered and, ultimately, hard-working people will benefit. Secondly, on taxes and spending, will the noble Lord, Lord Collins, listen to the Prime Minister’s friend and adviser, the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill of Gatley? The noble Lord is a globally recognised and respected economist who said only last week that if Ministers raise taxes, it will show that “they’re not thinking about growth as sincerely as they claim”. The noble Lord, Lord Walker of Broxton, was entirely correct when, in a previous debate, he agreed that he supports the Labour Party, not the “Benefits Party”. Will the Minister listen to the advice of the noble Lords, Lord Walker and Lord O’Neill, and cut the welfare bill? Finally, we have heard about GDP from this Government and from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in his opening remarks. But as my noble friend Lord Hintze, one of the world’s most respected fund managers, often reminds the Government, we should be looking at GDP per capita. It is more important for measuring individual living standards than GDP. Please will the Government consider that? It is a benchmark universally agreed by economists as the measure of individual living standards.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
I remain happy to have followed the noble Baroness, Lady Nargund, who reminded us of the blight in our country: the extreme levels of difference in social deprivation from postcode to postcode. This is also an urban-rural issue. If the Prime Minister is to be successful, it will be about not just growth in every postcode but reducing the blight of inequality of opportunity that so many of our communities face. I am glad that the noble Baroness raised that in the debate. I am also glad that the Labour Whips responded positively to a suggestion from these Benches that, when we came back after the Summer Recess, it would be an appropriate time to consider the statements by the new Prime Minister and some of the priorities that he has outlined. We congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on opening this debate and giving a very good fist to the arguments of the new ministerial team. He is to be commended on doing that so clearly. I reflected yesterday in the Chamber, when we were asking questions to the Leader of the House on the Prime Minister’s Statement, that in the 13 years I have been in this House, there have been seven Prime Ministers with an average tenure of just 21 months. This is an underlying symptom of some of the challenges we have in our political system, which I will refer to in a moment. I join the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in thanking Sir Keir Starmer for his service. It is a curious aspect of our system in politics in Britain that someone is a terrible politician and a disaster shortly before they resign, then after that they are a great public servant with a very proud record of service. Nevertheless, we thank Keir Starmer for his work, and we wish him well with whatever new role he carries out. Yesterday, I went through the areas in which the first speech of the new Prime Minister was essentially the same as the first speech by Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister, but with a little more emotion and heart. I do not disregard emotion and heart in our politics; they are important parts of our government. But both Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham said in their first speeches that “words are not actions”. As my noble friend Lord Storey said, the tests are ahead for this new ministerial team, and we will all judge actions. In many of those areas, we are willing to work with the Government and the new ministerial team, and we are eager to see some actions. One of the early things that the new Prime Minister could do is to respond positively to the very clear appeal by my noble friend Lady Benjamin to finally restore justice to the community of victims whom I had the privilege of meeting with her. It is a scar on our country that the new Prime Minister can erase. We have now had an opportunity to look at the first areas on which Mr Burnham said he wants to be judged: political reform and economic growth, with fewer costs in doing business. We share those priorities. These Benches are hungry for considerable political and constitutional reform—not for its own sake, but because, as I said, our system is failing. I suggest the great dividing lines in politics of our age, and the future, are less the rather sterile one of whether the economic policies of the 1970s were better or worse than 40 years later, as the Prime Minister has said. Instead, they are about tolerance and social cohesion, defence of institutions and the rule of law, protecting diversity and gender equality, and about those other forces, which are incredibly well funded and well organised, which are seeking to restrict, separate and blame communities for failings. These Benches and our Liberal International sister parties know that this division is global, not just here at home in the UK. It is why we work so closely with our sister parties, who are the Governments of Canada, Ukraine and Taiwan and are in the front line of these dividing lines in politics. Our system of politics in this country is simply not resilient enough. Reform UK, for example, believes it is appropriate for a political system to receive influxes of untraceable crypto money but not appropriate for leaders of parties to be accountable for donations they receive. This is cancerous in our system. Elon Musk supporting Restore and the dark area of social media in which it is all too easy for foreign interference to corrupt our system need to be closed down. We will work with the Government to ensure that reforms to strengthen our system are in place. But, as my noble friend Lord Pack said yesterday and today, we have not yet seen that the Government want to go far enough and we look forward to the legislative proposals. We want to work constructively to ensure that all those loopholes are closed. Another area in which, regrettably, there seems to be a dividing line is on the climate crisis. There should be no dividing line on this because, as my noble friend Lord Russell so soberingly outlined, and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, indicated so eloquently, there needs to be consensus that this is a crisis of our age that needs to be tackled. We have a mainstream political party that seems to prevent anyone standing for it who believes that net zero needs to be tackled. These are statutory targets. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, spoke eloquently on climate; we share his views. But one element that was disappointing in the first announcement by the new Prime Minister was that the cap on bus fares—unquestionably popular and, indeed, needed—was paid for by a cut in international climate finance. We therefore have a situation in which the first decision by the new Prime Minister was to cap bus fares in Britain and cut support for the poorest countries to replace filthy, polluting diesel buses in their cities. We will not be a trusted global partner if we make decisions such as this. Yesterday, I asked the Leader what the new Prime Minister’s proposals were for electoral reform, and she responded that there was no mandate for that. There was very clearly not a mandate for the Labour Government cutting official development assistance to the lowest ever levels. That, I hope, can be restored by the new Prime Minister. I also make an appeal that on the international stage, where we are of course supporting Ukraine and are a trusted partner around the world, the new Prime Minister will be a leader on the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet, for which the UK is the United Nations penholder: Sudan. The second area the Prime Minister said in his recent Financial Times interview he wanted was growth, and we support that. He said he wanted percentage points growth. The latest OECD growth forecast puts the UK equal third in the G7, at 0.9%. That is not a sufficient sustainable level of growth to balance our spending and debt pressures, which we have heard about in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Pitt-Watson, referred on Tuesday to trade deals being part of the Government’s growth strategy, but post-Brexit trade deals barely reach more than a third of 1% growth after 15 years, and the Government’s recent reset approach on SPS and other areas, welcome though it is, also represents, on the Government’s own estimate, a third of 1%. My noble friend Lord Newby appealed to the Government to think more ambitiously about our relationship with Europe. It is very disappointing that the new Prime Minister did not take that opportunity to ditch the red lines, which are a straitjacket on our growth with our European partners. Finally, we will work with the Government on other areas. We have already seen, as my noble friend Lady Sheehan said, some welcome moves on tackling the blight of waste and on supporting the hospitality sector. We will want to see the Government working on water industry accountability but we need clarity on what their intentions are for Thames Water. I hope that the Minister will be able to just circumvent all this and say that he will support my noble friend Lady Sheehan’s Private Member’s Bill, which will go a long way towards that—and, while we are at it, he can support my noble friend Lord Oates’s Private Member’s Bill on youth justice too. That would be a very good signal of the new Government’s intent. Over the summer we welcomed very much the Prime Minister reaching out to Ed Davey on care—that was mentioned yesterday. If there are signs that there is a new type of politics for the remainder of this Parliament, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, indicated, working on a cross-party basis to move towards some degree of consensus on social care is necessary. We know that decisions which may be difficult will have to be made, and they will be sustainable only if they are built on consensus. Ed Davey and these Benches want to play our part. We welcome the approach of the new Prime Minister in these areas. We will be pushing for further, faster reforms to our political system and our European relationship for growth. We want to improve lives and make the reforms sustainable—and we hope that the Prime Minister will last longer than the average tenure of 21 months to deliver that.
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.
The Deputy Leader of the House of Lords (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)
My Lords, we have had a great debate and I am looking forward to responding to all the wide-ranging points that have been made. I just say to the noble Lord, Lord True, that not only did the Prime Minister break a world record on Tuesday with a three-and-a-half-hour Statement setting out his priorities and being subject to questions, which he also did at PMQs, but we also had the repeat of the Statement yesterday, as the noble Lord said, which, again, the Leader answered questions on. I was very pleased that the Labour Party, backed by the Chief Whip, focused on this subject in today’s debates. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hunt for bringing forward this debate. In effect, we have had five hours of debate today on the new programme of the new Prime Minister and the new Government. It is a great opportunity. As the Prime Minister has set out, the Government’s agenda rests on four core areas: making Britain better off; putting power back into the hands of communities; giving people room to breathe; and tackling the most intractable problems so that Britain can believe in itself again. First, we will permanently shift decision-making out of Westminster. I say to the noble Lord, Lord True, that that is not a return to the 1970s. We established No. 10 North in Manchester as an engine room for devolution and local growth. Decisions affecting local areas will be taken by local leaders who know their communities best, underpinned by fiscal devolution and rebalanced public investment. I pay tribute to the comments made in this debate by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. She is absolutely right—we do have to empower local leaders and Ministers. Generally, this debate has been about how we bring people together to address the problems of the United Kingdom. That is a tribute to this House. Secondly, the Government will drive reindustrialisation and good growth in every postcode. We will back British business and industry at every opportunity. We are the party of enterprise. We are the party of aspiration. Those are the sorts of missions that this Government are absolutely committed to. Every pound of taxpayer spending will back British jobs, address skill shortages and support communities. We will support all parts of the country to take more public control over investment strategy, as my noble friend pointed out so well. Thirdly, we will give communities room to breathe, with a 20% business rate discount for pubs, clubs and live music venues from April 2027, bus fares capped at £2 and VAT removed from electricity bills this winter. Fourthly, the Government will tackle the systematic issues that, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester mentioned, have been ignored for too long: ending rough sleeping, decades of political drift on social care and the youth unemployment crisis, and building our way out of the housing crisis. I will come back to those issues later. We will continue to pass legislation underpinning our political priorities to deliver this change. On spending, we are committed to fiscal discipline. I know the noble Lord, Lord True, wants details, but it is not my place to pre-empt the Chancellor. As my noble friend highlighted, the Government are on track to reduce borrowing more than any G7 country and will reprioritise existing spending and budgets where necessary. I turn to some of the specific points made in the debate. My noble friend is absolutely right: planning has been a critical barrier to the necessary investments in our infrastructure. He asked me a specific question about the Fingleton recommendations. I reassure him that we committed in the King’s Speech to legislate in due course and that absolutely remains our position. We do not want to continue with this period of speculation. That is why the Budget will be on 28 October and will be built on very strong fiscal discipline. We are not borrowing for day-to-day spending. We want to get debt falling as a percentage of GDP by the end of the forecast. As I said, we are on track to reduce borrowing more than any other country. My noble friend Lord Davies is right. There has been very strong progress on pensions and on how pension funds can be used to drive that sort of growth to which we are committed. My noble friend Lord Eatwell raised a specific point about investment in science and technology. He is right. We have to address this. The problems that the STFC’s core budget has been affected by are energy costs, staff costs and unfavourable foreign exchange situations, but I reassure him that major international subscriptions, such as CERN, are being fully protected. The STFC will also generate more external income through supporting industrial partnerships, commercialisation and better use of its assets. The outcome published in July is a long-term, sustainable plan for the STFC with UKRI providing an additional £135 million, enabling programmes to realise the benefits of current investments as the STFC transitions to a long-term stable financial position. I acknowledge my noble friend Lady Hazarika’s position, and I think it is reflected across the House. We are all committed to recognising the threats that we now face, and certainly our commitment to Ukraine has been on a cross-party basis. This House remains united. We know that that threat is serious, and I agree with my noble friend that the idea that Russia is not a threat is complete nonsense. We are committed to 3.5% of GDP on defence spending by 2035. The defence investment plan will be fully funded, and defence will be an engine for good jobs across the country. We have signed more than 1,400 major defence contracts, and 94% are with UK firms. We are ensuring that the need to spend on defence benefits communities across the United Kingdom. As my noble friend Lord Coaker reminded the House recently, we have had the biggest investment in military housing for half a century and the biggest pay rise for our Armed Forces. I say to my noble friend Lord Hunt and other noble Lords, particularly my noble friend Lord Whitty, that we are committed to our climate change commitments and are investing £100 million in fire and rescue, with record levels of flood defences to ensure that we are adapting to the effects of climate change. This summer has shown the clear impact that climate change has had on our country. On the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sheenan, I recognise waste dumping as an unmitigated disaster and a crime. The PM will set out a plan to shut down those criminal gangs. He has given a commitment to that plan. We have also given additional funding to tackle the three major illegal waste sites in the country. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, for consistently raising the Windrush scandal. My noble friend Lord Hanson has answered Questions from her on this issue. I understand the impact of the compensation scheme, but I am afraid I will have to write to her with a detailed response on that report. I cannot go further than that at this stage. To pick up the point about health and social care, the Prime Minister has a clear ambition to work on a cross-party basis to end decades of political drift and reform of adult social care. Part of his mission is to tackle this issue that has been ignored for too long. As part of this, the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, is, as we know, chairing an independent commission into adult social care. In July, the Prime Minister announced that the publication of the Casey review will be brought forward by a year, to 2027, as well as work to go further on reform of the social care workforce, building on the fair pay agreement—a point raised by my noble friend Lady Rafferty. These two issues are linked. My noble friend Lady Royall raised the issue of the need for staffing, and my noble friend Lady Rafferty is right that we need to ensure that there is fair pay in social care, because that is how we retain people. It is an important step, alongside wider workforce reforms like the care workforce pathway, towards our longer-term ambition for a national care service. That is why we are taking a deliberate and phased approach. It is important that reforms are implemented in a way that is affordable, deliverable and sustainable for the sector. The first fair pay agreement, backed by £500 million in funding, will lay the foundation for future agreements, so I welcome that contribution. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester raised the issue of homelessness. We have been very clear about the impact of that, and the Prime Minister has understood the urgent social priority to end rough sleeping, backed by a dedicated £442 million funding package—targeted funding established to offer everyone needing it a route off the streets by Christmas, as part of the core mission to tackle infrastructure. Housing is a big issue, and we need to tackle the housing crisis and boost economic growth. There is £39 billion for social and affordable housing, with the first £10 billion having been allocated. I am glad that my noble friend Lady Taylor is here, because she has highlighted the importance of this to this House on numerous occasions. We have allocated £9.5 billion to deliver 70,000 homes, with 60% for social rent—the highest number of social rent completions since 2012. We have a very clear pathway on that. In relation to the economy, our commitment to business and how we are focused on driving growth, particularly through devolution and giving local leaders that responsibility, we also understand the impact of unemployment, particularly youth unemployment. Our goal is getting people up for success, not paying for failure, so there is £3.5 billion for tailored employment support. Major changes will be made to technical education to give 14 year-olds access to skills and experience. We have just had a 2.5-hour debate on a number of those issues. Employment is at a near record high, having risen by 1 million since the election—the third highest employment rate in the G7. Economic inactivity is down, but the issue of those young people who are not in education, employment or training needs to be addressed. Some of the schemes are working. The £3,000 bonus for firms hiring long-term youth unemployed is just one example. It is important that we understand that. A number of Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Frost, have raised the issue of Europe. The Prime Minister has been very clear that we must be bolder in securing a closer relationship. The UK-EU summit this year is the right way to boost GDP and growth and to improve trade, defence and security. These things are not in isolation. That partnership with Europe is vital also to improving our security. As my noble friend the Leader said yesterday, this is not opening the door to a single market or customs union, but there is a way that we can improve our partnership to deliver the things that we need to ensure our economic growth and security. The noble Lord, Lord True, mentioned some of the legislative changes in the programmes that we have had. There will be some changes in the details of Bills, as noble Lords would expect when there is a change in ministerial leadership, and ministerial colleagues will be keeping noble Lords updated in the usual way, including by tabling amendments. On the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, about our democracy, as my noble friend Lady Taylor made clear yesterday, we are committed to making our democracy fairer, more secure and more resilient. We have accepted all the recommendations in Philip Rycroft’s review of foreign interference in our democracy earlier this year, and, as my noble friend made clear yesterday, our legislation is progressing through Parliament and will protect our elections and open up our democracy. A cap of £100,000 on political donations from overseas, protecting democracy from the surge of dirty money, and the ban on cryptocurrencies make this absolutely clear. I reassure the noble Lord that our priority is a democracy that works for everyone everywhere, not just people in some places. The Prime Minister still supports electoral reform as part of that mission, but he understands that it is a big constitutional question and it is premature to legislate now. There needs to be a mandate, I reassure the noble Lord, Lord True. We have made clear that mandates are governed by manifestos, not by some spurious other form that can be invented at any other time. I am running out of time, so if there are areas that have been raised but that I have not specifically addressed then I reassure noble Lords that I will write to them. This has been an incredibly useful debate, and I reassure the noble Lord, Lord True, that we are committed to working together to address the big issues that this country faces, particularly social care. However, the Prime Minister has set out his priorities for the country: making Britain better off, putting power back into the hands of community, giving people room to breathe and tackling the most intractable problems so that Britain can believe in itself again. I have outlined those issues. I want to reassure noble Lords. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, who said that 21 months has been the average term served by a Prime Minister. Let us be clear about this: there is an expectation out there that our big problems can be solved immediately. That is not the case. As politicians, we can do more to get people to understand that these challenges cannot be resolved overnight. That is why, later this year, the Prime Minister will bring forward a new plan for Britain—a 10-year plan laying out a path from where we are now to where we believe we all want Britain to be, combining immediate and direct action today with lasting national renewal and change that will be felt across the whole country.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I think I have about one and a half minutes to respond. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It has been good-natured, and I am grateful for that. I say to the noble Lord, Lord True, that I always enjoy his contributions, but we have had a good run in the House this week on the Government’s future priorities. We had the Statement yesterday with the extra 20 minutes for Back-Benchers, while my noble friend Lady Morgan’s debate earlier went to the core purpose of the Government, particularly in relation to young people and vocational training. I defend the right of Back-Benchers to lead debates on critical issues. There is very little time left. I want to come back to the issue my noble friend left on, about seeking some consensus on some of the hardest issues we face. He mentioned social care. We have had two false starts—in 2010 and then later with the pronouncement from the now noble Baroness, Lady May, and the response to it. Let us make sure we do not do that again. On climate, surely, we should work hard to try to recreate a consensus. Then there are issues such as the triple lock. We all know we have to face up to this. Again, I urge some form of debate between the different parties to see if we can reach a sensible outcome. Having said that, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part.
Motion agreed.
Source: UK Parliament Hansard API. Debate ID: 5398356.