Economic and Taxation Policies: Jobs, Growth and Prosperity
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Lord Frost (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the incoming director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs. My proposition today is that we are living through a great refusal when what we need, as this morning’s growth figures show, is a great reversal. In Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, the shade of Pope Celestine V stands on the threshold of hell, judged for his great refusal: his rejection of the burden of the office of Pope. This country stands in a similarly precarious position, because this current Government—indeed, successive Governments—have refused to face up to their burdens and their duties: the difficult but necessary actions to get the economy back on the right track. They have refused to use the regulatory freedom that came with Brexit to deregulate and get markets going again, and now we are paying the price for all this.
We know what brings prosperity to a country: low taxation, property rights, no confiscation of wealth, rewarding of effort, welfare that supports the needy but only the needy, and well-functioning markets with minimum regulation. Sadly, since the 2008 crash, the direction of travel has been in quite the opposite direction. Changing this will not be easy. Indeed, I fear that we are instead seeing something that is very common in human nature: when confronted with something you do not want to change, you find intellectual justifications for why it does not need to change.
A new conventional wisdom has therefore emerged: the belief that those fundamental nostrums that I have just set out are somehow outdated and that the modern way to run the economy is different. Its believers, who are heavily represented in the current Government and in the public sector economic establishment—but not only there—think that high tax and spending are not in themselves bad; that growth can come from more public sector so-called investment, financed by tax or borrowing and a state-run industrial policy; and that these things never squeeze out private sector activity in any way. They think that distributional questions are the most important ones, and that dynamism in an economy is a bad thing because it increases inequality. They think that prices and markets do not have a signalling function but are essentially arbitrary and can be safely manipulated for wider social goals, and much more of the same sort of thing.
Of course. this is how the economy has actually been run—or, rather, run into the ground—for most of this century. That is why GDP per head has gone up by a miserable 0.5% a year over most of this period. It is why taxes are up eight percentage points from the early years of the Blair Government, now at 37% of GDP. It is why spending has gone up 12 to 13 percentage points, now at 45% of GDP—and no doubt later this month all those figures are going to be a couple of percentage points higher still.
We have reached the end of the road for this economic programme. We do not need more of it. What we now need is a great reversal, the renunciation of big-state economics, the undoing and the unwinding of most economic policy measures that have been taken this century: labour market controls, price controls, wage setting by government and judicial fiat, the disastrous net-zero policy, the pensions triple lock, heedless welfare spending and, of course, tax. We need a 10-year programme to get tax, spending and regulation safely back down to those early Blair-era numbers. If we do not do that, we will face another great refusal: the refusal of the markets to finance us and the refusal of our people to stay in the country and be taxed to deliver them.
There is no point in doing things that are popular but do not solve the country’s problems. I would like to hear from the Government that they understand that, and that they need to face up to this as a country and change our ways soon.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I also start by thanking my noble friend Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell for initiating this debate so compellingly and I echo his tribute to Lord Desai.
I agree with so much of what he said about the importance of growth—dismal again today—the disastrous effect of high energy prices, the need to remove regulatory obstacles to employment and the devastating effect of high taxation on enterprise culture and competitiveness. As the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said, it was a balanced speech. It was good to hear the latter’s support for welfare reform and for sorting out the nonsense of the day-one rights in the Employment Rights Bill. Let us hope that happens.
It is helpful to look at the broad picture first. Sometimes implicitly, the debate has touched on two linked economic hypotheses, both of them relevant to how we run the economy and the level of tax. The first, touched on by my noble friend Lord Massey of Hampstead and reflected in the request from my noble friend Lord Frost for reversal, is that there is a level of overall taxation, in terms of a percentage of GDP, beyond which extra tax becomes ever more injurious and disincentivising, hence economically undesirable. Economists note that the current level of taxation in the UK is very high by historic standards. Many conclude that the UK has reached the stage where this hypothesis is becoming increasingly true.
The second hypothesis, touched on by my noble friends Lord Petitgas and Lady Meyer, states that high levels of national debt, judged as a percentage of GDP, is a bad thing. Unfortunately, UK debt now stands at around 100% of GDP—a very high level for peacetime. It holds that the responsible thing for the Government to do, when faced with high levels of debt, is to reduce it, not least since high levels of debt reduce the effectiveness of responses to outside shocks such as Covid.
Under this Government, we have a very high level of national debt and taxation, both of which ought to be decreased, but on present plans will increase. The only way to square this circle is to reduce national expenditure. Yet, as my noble friends Lady Stedman-Scott and Lord Young of Cookham have said, the Government’s own review of PIP is looking at no savings at all. We need welfare reform and, indeed, a single-minded determination to get expenditure down, in the words of my noble friend Lord Horam, who recalled a former Conservative Prime Minister. My noble friend Lord Harper said raising income tax to pay for welfare was not a wise way forward.
If they were responsible, the Government would be planning to reduce expenditure to improve the fiscal position. But, alas, all the signs are that this is as likely as finding a man on the moon. Britain is living beyond its means, locked in a doom loop of high spend, high debt and high taxes.
There were some interesting new thoughts in the debate. My noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne emphasised the importance of microeconomics and the the fascinating lessons of his firm Direct Special Measures in improving our jobcentres. My noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford talked about how Germany has been dealing with the fiscal challenges. It was also a pleasure to hear again the creative thinking of my noble friend Lord Saatchi and to hear from my noble friend Lord Kempsell, who noted that no one in the Cabinet has run a business, as of course many people in this House have done.
I turn to taxation, so eloquently addressed by one such person, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. According to the international index published last month by the Tax Foundation, the UK now ranks 32nd out of 38 OECD countries for tax competitiveness. In the G7 it is ahead of only Italy and France. This is not a good place to be. As another former businesswoman, I can confirm from experience that high rates of corporation tax affect investment decisions and that investors go where such taxes are low—just look at Ireland’s success.
The Government are keen to paint a picture in which the state of the economy is everyone else’s fault, but business leaders and the public know that the situation we are in is substantially a consequence of the Government’s own decisions. They started by claiming that growth was their overriding priority, which I supported, but quickly lost credibility with last year’s Budget decisions, notably on NICs, IHT—we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, about its devasting effect on rural communities—and, of course, the Employment Rights Bill.
It is obvious that, if professionals and innovators see a large share of each additional pound going to the tax man, their incentive to expand businesses or move to Britain diminishes. We can look at international examples as a cautionary tale. France’s experiment with a tax on top earners a decade ago led to an exodus of talent and embarrassment for the Government. We have ourselves seen a huge exit of the wealthy since the election. As the noble Lord, Lord Petitgas, said, some of those leaving are younger people, including members of my own family.
We need to find a way to reverse the incentives to move to Dubai, Singapore, the US or Gibraltar—which we heard about from the noble Lord, Lord Wharton. However, these Benches all agree that taxes on exit would be a disaster and lead to further problems.
In addition to the fiscal damage done to our economy, it is clear from the debate that the regulatory changes being introduced in the form of legislation, such as the Employment Rights Bill, are set to harm working people even further and discourage hiring. The Government themselves estimate that the Bill alone would add almost £5billion a year in costs to businesses, killing growth in the SME sector, which bears the highest burden, as my noble friend Lord Leigh said. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, is also very sound on this point about SMEs and we very much agree that it is a vital consideration. Many, including my noble friend Lady Fall, spoke about the problems in the labour market and the recent rise in the unemployment rate to 5%. His Majesty’s Opposition are clear that the Employment Rights Bill should be rewritten.
Unfortunately, this comes on top of other increases such as in business rates and in NICs—£25 billion— new environmental charges of various kinds, large increases in the national living wage at the same time, and energy costs, as my noble friend Lord Elliott emphasised, which are four times as high as they are in US and seven times as high as China’s. My noble friend Lord Trenchard talked of the impact of this growing pattern of regulation on investors such as Japan, and my noble friend Lord Risby made a compelling case for the devastating effect on SMEs, on which I have already touched.
We on this side of the House are clear that economic prosperity comes from productivity and growth, not from ever-higher taxes. Increased productivity is the foundation of raising wages and living standards. My noble friend Lord Elliott’s excellent book is worth reading for the number of policies that he sets out.
Another problem we have with productivity is the sheer size of the Civil Service, which is less productive than the private sector, employing 384,000 before the pandemic and 516,000 today.
The shadow Chancellor set out a menu of £47 billion in savings last month, without hitting most of the capital investment that the Minister so often cites, That includes the SMRs in north Wales that were announced today, which I also welcome. Mel Stride’s menu is the path to faster growth and higher productivity.
My noble friend Lord Bridges rightly registered our disappointment that the promise in the Chancellor’s Mais Lecture of a “fundamental course correction” for the British economy has not been delivered and said that the Chancellor has lost control of spending. To respond to the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, we are clear that fiscal responsibility means honesty, consistency and transparency, but we have had none of this from the Chancellor.
I look forward to the Minister’s answers to some of these challenging questions, but the evidence is clear: since the election of July 2024, the trajectory of economic policy has tilted towards higher taxes and greater regulatory burdens, and it is clear that we are going to have more of both. This path is fraught with dangers for jobs, growth and prosperity in Britain. The record-high tax burden is squeezing businesses and households and risking a downturn in economic activity. A Budget that prioritises growth and productivity and reduces regulation would set Britain back on the path to rising incomes and expanding opportunity. That is what is needed.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Livermore) (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell, on securing this debate and on his thoughtful, interesting and wide-ranging opening speech. I very much look forward to reading his book, once I receive the free copy that I was promised. I also join the noble Lord in his heartfelt tribute to the late noble Lord, Lord Desai.
It has been most enjoyable today to listen to the contributions from so many distinguished noble Lords, and it is a pleasure to respond to this debate. It has been a particular pleasure to hear from noble Lords from the party opposite about how to grow the economy; it is perhaps a pity they did not take their own advice over the past 14 years.
We have heard in this debate from members of the previous Government about how to grow the economy and increase prosperity, despite growth in living standards being one of their greatest failures; we have heard from some of the most prominent supporters of Brexit about how to grow the economy, despite their own disastrous Brexit deal permanently reducing GDP by four percentage points, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Eatwell; and we have heard from some of the most enthusiastic acolytes of Liz Truss about how to grow the economy—
Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)
If the Minister will allow me, he spoke about GDP being reduced by four percentage points. I assume he is referring to the OBR’s original projection, which was over the next 15 years. So far, we have not had the 15 years, and he is thoroughly misrepresenting the situation if he is implying that this has already happened.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I do not think I have misrepresented the situation in any way, shape or form. The OBR forecast that around two-fifths of the 4% impact had already occurred by the time the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement came into force and that GDP will be 2.7% lower by 2025, with the remaining reduction occurring by 2030, meaning the economy will be over £100 billion smaller than it otherwise would have been.
As I was saying, we have also heard from some of the most enthusiastic acolytes of Liz Truss about how to grow the economy, despite the Liz Truss mini-Budget crashing the economy and sending mortgage rates spiralling. I think we have long since abandoned any hope of an apology to the British people from the party opposite for its record on the economy over 14 years, but what is still shocking is its inability to show even the slightest hint of self-awareness for the damage it did to the British economy over the past 14 years or any awareness that that damage continues to scar our economy today, as my noble friend Lord Davies of Brixton clearly set out.
The reality of that record over 14 years is stark, as my noble friend Lord Liddle said. First, there was austerity, mentioned by my noble friend Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway, which took demand out of the economy at exactly the wrong moment and cut investment, undermining the economy’s ability to grow, and left us ill-prepared for the future. Then a disastrous and tragically misjudged Brexit deal—interestingly, not mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, in his opening speech—imposed new trade barriers equivalent to a 13% increase in tariffs for manufacturing and a 20% increase in tariffs for services, reducing total trade intensity by 15%. As a result, as I have said, the economy will be over £100 billion smaller by 2030.
The combined effect of these costly mistakes was devastating. Had the UK economy grown by the average of other OECD countries over those 14 years, it would be more than £150 billion larger today. The previous Parliament was the worst ever for living standards. Inflation hit 11.1% and was above target for 33 months in a row. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, mentioned business investment. She may recall that, under her Government, the UK had the lowest private investment levels in the whole of the G7, productivity growth entirely stalled and output per worker grew more slowly than in nearly every other G7 country.
These policy errors, chronic instability and low levels of investment have left deep scars on the British economy, as my noble friend Lord Eatwell set out. As mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Harper, alongside the forthcoming Budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility will set out the conclusions of its review into the supply side of the UK economy. I will not pre-empt those conclusions today, but the OBR may downgrade the historic assessment of the UK’s productivity and may conclude that the productivity performance we inherited from the previous Government was even weaker than previously thought.
Lord Bridges of Headley (Con)
Can the Minister clarify that his argument is that the Government have made no policy errors regarding their economic management over the last year?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am only five minutes into my speech; let us hear my whole speech before we conclude on that.
The OBR’s productivity assessment will be a look in the rear-view mirror, but the past mistakes of the previous Government do not need to determine our country’s future. While the record of the past 14 years may be even worse than previously realised, it underlines the importance of delivering higher and more sustainable economic growth, which has been the defining mission of this Government since we entered office. The noble Lords, Lord Elliott, Lord Harper and Lord Bridges, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes and Lady Neville-Rolfe, mentioned today’s growth figures. While they are, of course, lower than any of us would want to see, they confirm that the UK was the fastest growing economy in the G7 in the first half of this year and show just how much more there is to do.
We will move further and faster with our growth strategy, set out clearly many times and built on the three pillars of ensuring economic and fiscal stability, reforming the economy and increasing investment. It is welcome that the IMF has said that this strategy focuses on the right areas to increase productivity. This strategy recognises that growth comes not from government but from businesses and investors and that there is a role for a strategic state, not to step back and let businesses fend for themselves, but to act in partnership with business by systematically removing the barriers to growth that it faces.
The first pillar, stability, is the foundation all else is built on. That began with the Government’s first Budget last October. The noble Lords, Lord Harper, Lord Swire and Lord Leigh of Hurley, could not help but mention the £22 billion black hole in the public finances we inherited, which the previous Government sought to conceal from the OBR, but once again—
Lord Harper (Con)
Will the Minister confirm that at no point would the OBR, either in interviews or in its documents, confirm the existence of a £22 billion black hole because it absolutely did not?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
The report that it produced stopped before the conclusion of the previous Government. It stopped at that Government’s last Budget and of course they had several months left to run. The OBR reported on the period it was asked to report on, yet the previous Government still had several more months to run. The OBR has absolutely concluded that that information was concealed from it, and I think that is a very serious thing for us to know. Once again, noble Lords who mentioned it in their speeches today sought to deny and downplay that black hole—exactly the behaviour that got the country into the mess the previous Government left behind.
Faced with that inheritance, any responsible Government would need to act. One of the decisions we took was to increase the level of employers’ national insurance contributions to help repair the public finances, rebuild public services and restore economic stability, as mentioned by so many noble Lords in today’s debate. Contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, said, I acknowledge, as we have always acknowledged, that there are consequences to responsibility and that the increase in employers’ national insurance would have costs to businesses and beyond, but the consequences of irresponsibility for the economy and working people would have been far greater, as we saw in the Liz Truss mini-Budget. Many noble Lords opposite mentioned the importance of small businesses, and I completely agree with them. The Government protected the smallest businesses from these changes by increasing the employment allowance from £5,000 to £10,500. This means that 865,000 employers will pay no national insurance contributions at all, and more than half of all employers will either gain or see no change.
Another area highlighted in this debate by the noble Lords, Lord Elliott and Lord Bilimoria, the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes and Lady Neville-Rolfe, was the non-dom regime. It is right that everyone who makes their home in the UK pays their taxes here. The Government have therefore removed the outdated concept of domicile status from the tax system and introduced a new residence-based regime. The OBR has certified that the non-dom reforms the Government have implemented will raise £33.8 billion in total revenue, and that figure accounts for some non-doms who are ineligible for the new regime choosing to leave the UK in response to these reforms. The Government will of course continue to work with stakeholders to ensure that the new regime is internationally competitive and focused on attracting the best talent and investment into the UK.
The noble Baroness, Lady Foster, and the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, among others, mentioned changes to agricultural property relief and business property relief. The Government made these changes better to target APR and BPR and to make them fairer. The reforms mean that, despite the tough fiscal context, we are maintaining very significant levels of relief from inheritance tax beyond what is available to others. These reforms mean that almost three-quarters of estates claiming APR, including those that also claim BPR, will not pay more inheritance tax.
The economic stability provided in our first Budget is underpinned by our fiscal rules, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Eatwell and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. Those rules allow us to invest more in capital, alongside a credible plan to grow our economy and bring debt down within this Parliament. We met these fiscal rules in the Budget last year and at the Spring Statement in March, and we will meet them again at the forthcoming Budget.
The second pillar of our growth strategy is to deliver whatever reforms are necessary to remove the barriers to growth faced by businesses and investors. These include planning reforms, which the OBR estimates will add 0.4% to GDP—the biggest policy-driven booster growth with no fiscal cost that it has ever scored. Our pension reforms will unlock £50 billion of investment for businesses and major infrastructure. Our skills reforms will equip firms with the skilled workforce they need to grow. We have begun a reset with the European Union, which I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, will support, despite not going as far as she argued for in her speech today. We have also reached a trade agreement with the US and signed a new trade deal with India. We have set out a new modern industrial strategy to target high-growth sectors. As mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Risby, we are cutting the administrative costs of regulation on business by 25%, and we are delivering the Leeds reforms, the widest-ranging reforms to financial services regulation in over a decade.
The final pillar of our growth strategy is investment, which stability and reform are designed to increase. The Government have an important role to play here. The IMF has long warned that a lack of public investment was a significant barrier to growth. That is why we have committed an additional £120 billion of public investment over the next five years, made possible by reform of the fiscal rules. Our fiscal rules ensure that we do not need to cut capital spending, unlike the previous Government which planned to cut it even further, as my noble friend Lord Eatwell observed, which got us into this productivity hole in the first place. We are directing our additional capital investment into growth-driving projects, including new homes, improved transport connectivity and new nuclear projects such as Wylfa, as mentioned by my noble friend Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway and the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, and we are catalysing private investment through the new National Wealth Fund and British Business Bank.
As so many noble Lords opposite have said today, the real prize is increased private sector investment in our economy. Whereas under the previous Government the UK had the lowest level of private investment in the G7, since the election private sector companies have committed over £325 billion-worth of investment into the UK, including during the US state visit in September and, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Chandos, at the regional investment summit last month—the first, we hope, of many.
Real progress takes time and, as my noble friend Lord Chandos said, we cannot reverse 14 years of underinvestment overnight. But real wages grew more in the first 10 months of this Government than in the first 10 years of the previous Government. Under the previous Government, we saw the worst pay growth in a century, with barely 0.3% growth between 2010 and 2024. The noble Lord, Lord Elliott, spoke about living standards in his opening speech. Living standards are up 2.1% since the election, compared to the 1.8% fall over the last Parliament. That was the only Parliament on record where living standards were worse at the end of the Parliament than at the beginning, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky.
Whereas the UK was ranked seventh out of seven for projected 2025 growth in the G7 under the previous Government, our growth was the fastest in the G7 in the first half of this year. But we do not expect anyone to be satisfied with growth of 1%. Today’s growth figures reinforce the fact we need to go further and faster, not repeating the previous Government’s mistakes of cutting investment but continuing to create the right conditions for growth.
The first part of our planning reforms will add an additional £6.8 billion to the size of our economy in the next five years, but the next part, our planning Bill, must complete its passage through Parliament before it can make a difference. Interest rates, which rose consistently in the last Parliament, have now been cut five times since the election, but at 4% they are still a constraint on business borrowing and a burden on family finances. Inflation is clearly much lower than the double digits seen under the previous Government, but the choices we make must be focused on getting inflation falling and creating the conditions for interest-rate cuts to support economic growth and improve the cost of living.
As mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, in his opening speech, while we have taken action in the industrial strategy to reduce business energy costs by up to £420 million a year, they are still too high and we must go further.
Noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Elliott, Lord Harper and Lord Bilimoria, mentioned the importance of employment. The latest figures show that 138,000 jobs have been created since the election. The OBR forecasts that over this Parliament employment will rise and unemployment will fall, but the figures published this week show exactly why we must go further to get Britain working and get our economy growing. I am grateful for the support for the youth guarantee from the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky; and the noble Lord, Lord Howard, mentioned the importance of jobcentre reform.
Noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Elliott, Lord Leigh of Hurley and Lord Massey of Hampstead, the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, my noble friend Lord Liddle and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, mentioned the Employment Rights Bill. As noble Lords know, the Bill is still going through its final parliamentary stages. The Government are also supporting businesses to create jobs, innovate and grow, including by reforming our regulatory framework to reduce barriers to growth and investing in our economy.
Many noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham, Lord Petitgas, Lord Horam and Lord Bridges of Headley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, mentioned welfare. The Government are committed to reforming our welfare state. We are shifting the focus from welfare to work, skills and opportunities. We have backed that up with £1 billion a year for employment support by the end of the decade. As my noble friend Lord Liddle said, the Government have also announced an independent report into young people and work, to be led by Alan Milburn, which will examine why increasing numbers of young people are falling out of work or education. He will publish his final report by next summer.
Many noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Elliott, Lord Harper, Lord Petitgas, Lord Swire, Lord Wharton of Yarm, Lord Massey of Hampstead and Lord Kempsell, the noble Baronesses, Lady Stedman-Scott, Lady Fall and Lady Kramer, and my noble friend Lord Liddle, spoke about the forthcoming Budget in just under two weeks’ time. There has been much speculation about the forthcoming Budget, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, but, as my noble friend Lord Chandos rightly suggested, I am not going to comment on individual tax measures today. The Chancellor has asked the OBR to produce a new forecast. She will take decisions based on that forecast, and we will set out our fiscal plans at the Budget in the usual way. The Chancellor will, though, make those decisions mindful of the importance of growth and investment to businesses and to the economy, and it is vital that the tax system supports our growth mission.
The noble Lord, Lord Elliott, spoke of the importance of innovation and enterprise, mentioned also by the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Hale, while the noble Baroness, Lady Fall, rightly spoke about the importance of supporting scale-up businesses. The current rate of corporation tax is the lowest in the G7, and that is supplemented by generous business investment reliefs that directly support investment, including full expensing, R&D tax reliefs and the patent box regime.
The noble Lord, Lord Bridges, mentioned headroom. As the Chancellor said earlier this week, we will continue to
“build more resilient public finances—with the headroom to withstand global turbulence … giving business the confidence to invest and leaving government freer to act when the situation calls for it”.
We have been clear about the principles that will guide the forthcoming Budget. It will protect the NHS and public services from a return to austerity, because it was austerity that choked off investment that would have put our country on a path to recovery after the financial crisis. Instead, we will protect investment in our economy and build on the progress already made to repair the public services. The Budget will support growth, enabling businesses to create jobs and innovate. It will improve the cost of living by doing what is necessary to protect families from high inflation and high interest rates, and it will keep debt under control because the less we spend on debt interest, the more we can spend on the priorities for working people, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, rightly said,
I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in today’s debate, but we will take no lectures from the party opposite, which presided over 14 years of instability, low productivity and economic decline. Where it delivered the slowest projected growth in the G7, growth in the first half of this year was the fastest in the G7. Where it presided over the worst Parliament ever for living standards, living standards have increased by 2.1% since the election. Where it oversaw the worst pay growth in a century, real wages grew more in the first 10 months of this Government than in the first 10 years of the previous one. Where it continually cut capital spending and deterred investment, we are investing for the long term, with £120 billion over the next five years, alongside £325 billion committed by the private sector since the election.
The OBR may conclude shortly that the productivity record of the previous Government was even worse than previously thought, but we will not let those past mistakes determine our country’s future. This Government will invest in the NHS, support growth and improve the cost of living. We will continue to build strong foundations for our economy because that is the only route to securing Britain’s long-term future.
Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell (Con)
My Lords, I will be brief. I thank the Library for its excellent briefing note, and all noble Lords for their thoughtful contributions. It has been a superb and stimulating debate; we should consider making it an annual fixture in the Lords calendar.
There are lots of points I would love to pick up on, not least on welfare, the notion of an exit tax, even capital controls, but I get the sense from the House that the thing noble Lords would like to hear from me most on is perhaps Brexit. It was mentioned by the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer.
There was a lot of talk about the OBR report. I have read that report and it is based on projections brought together before the referendum, before we knew what sort of deal it would be from the EU. It is actually a very old report. Since 2016, it is worth noting that UK economic growth, although less than expected, has been higher than most western European countries. UK trade—
Lord Livermore (Lab)
It is just worth noting that the OBR updated those forecasts in 2024 and 2025 and maintained its view that it will reduce GDP by four percentage points.
Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell (Con)
It is also worth noting that UK trade with the EU is now higher than it was in 2019, as is UK trade with the rest of the world. The referendum was over nine and a half years ago and we left the EU five and a half years ago. I think it is time to take responsibility for what is going on now with economic growth. The Government should be commended for some measures which have increased economic growth, such as the post-Brexit trade deals—not possible without Brexit—with the US, the Gulf states and India.
I liked the intellectual honesty of saying that we should rejoin the customs union and think the Government should be more intellectually honest if they talk about Brexit. It is worth noting, though, that were we to rejoin the EU, what would the annual membership fee now be? Perhaps £22 billion a year—that would be another £22 billion to think about. I hope the Government consider some of the proposals put forward in the Budget and I beg to move.