My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakesâthe yin and yang of the Conservative Party.
As the value of the pound dips, retail sales drop, public confidence drops, car fuel sales drop and the purchasing managersâ index drops, the Governor of the Bank of England has said the situation is unprecedented. It is not, of course. Replace the invasion of Ukraine with the 1970s OPEC blackmail and the situation is quite similar.
In the next couple of years, the Executive will replay the full panoply of blame. The Cabinet are totally brilliant at blaming everyone else: the Bank of England, civil servants, trade unions, lefty lawyers, even the House of Lords. They will be on full military alert to escape responsibility for the mess they have madeâsigning international agreements then threatening to renege on them, making laws and then breaking them, enriching their friends, and at the same time attacking the lowest paid and most vulnerable workers in Britain.
Households face the biggest cut in their living standards since the 1950s. Private rents are rising at a record rate, and would-be tenants outnumber available properties by more than three to one. In the most deprived areas in London, life expectancy drops by 12 years compared with the least deprived. You can walk to and from the extremes in some cases. Women living in the poorest areas of England are dying earlier than the average woman in all other OECD countries except Mexico.
The Governmentâs levelling-up debate paper aims to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy, but to do this they have to improve access to decent housing, healthy food, unpolluted playgrounds and parks, employment opportunities and an improved benefit system. Government action is doing the opposite: postponing implementation of the buy-one-get-one-free legislation and failing to put forward an employment Bill in the Queenâs Speech. The TUC general secretary Frances OâGrady accused Ministers of conning working people, especially after the scandalous events at P&O. Matthew Taylor, who wrote the report on employment practices two years ago, noted that the Government were âfailing yet againâ to act on the recommendations of the good work review.
The Queenâs Speech stated:
âHer Majestyâs Government will drive economic growth to improve living standardsâ,
but the Womenâs Budget Group has shown that austerity policies, low wage rises and cuts to social security have left women even more vulnerable to poverty. Increasing benefits by 7% and improving employment protection and childcare rights would go some way to alleviating these hardships.
One solution might be to abolish the Treasury, as suggested by Westlake and Haskel. It is unique in western economies in combining control of government expenditure, public credit and taxation and an economic ministry meant to stimulate economic growth. It controls the political news cycle, is addicted to policy initiatives and, as Westlake describes,
âdisempowers other government departments, putting civil servants who are often experts in their field at the mercy of brilliant but inexperienced young Treasury officials.â
But it will not happen. The people who run this country quite like having the equivalent of the headmasterâs study in charge.
We are in for a bumpy ride in the next two years. We need to stick together, mitigate the worst of the damage and trust in the British people at the next general election to dismiss this disreputable Government.
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