Autumn Budget 2025

Baroness Griffin of Princethorpe Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Griffin of Princethorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted to welcome a Budget that puts fairness at the heart of decision-making. I particularly welcome the reversal of the travesty of austerity and the lifting of our most vulnerable children out of poverty. I welcome a pro-growth Budget that invests in infrastructure.

I led on energy poverty in the European Parliament, so I strongly welcome cutting the cost of living, bringing down the average energy bill and investing in green energy infrastructure. I strongly welcome our strengthened relationships with our partner economies in the EU and our beginning to mitigate the disasters of Brexit. I was particularly moved by the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth and look forward to working with him.

As a city councillor in the 1990s, I represented the poorest ward in Liverpool. When we speak of hydrogen, it has to be green hydrogen derived from renewables. We also need to invest more in energy efficiency—after all, the cheapest fuel is the fuel that you do not use at all. Talent and potential exist in every town, city, rural economy and county. However, they are not yet evenly matched by opportunities, high GDP jobs, skills training or adequate transport links, especially in the north.

While I welcome Northern Powerhouse Rail, the Government must build on the Budget to enhance city region powers and ignite growth in every region and between northern regions, building a sustainable economy and transport links to eradicate, once and for all, socioeconomic disparity for communities such as Liverpool, Crewe and Blackpool. In the European Parliament, every time someone stood up and asked, “What about London?”, I retorted, “What about Manchester, Liverpool and Carlisle?” Our economic recovery must fully embrace the challenges and opportunities of the north.

Spending Review 2025

Baroness Griffin of Princethorpe Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Griffin of Princethorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I also wish my noble friend Lord Livermore a very happy, significant birthday.

Communities across the country were told for years that they would be levelled up. In practice, regional investment plummeted and long-promised schemes were downgraded or pulled entirely. Does my noble friend agree that while it will take time for people to see the results of regional investment, the money allocated to English city regions and the devolved authorities will enable long-term schemes that provide jobs and growth and are genuinely transformative?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for her kind words and her good wishes. I absolutely agree with her. One of the central themes of this spending review is making sure that growth is both created in all parts of the country and felt in all parts of the country. For too long, we have been reliant on just one or two regions of our country to generate that growth. Clearly, given our growth mission and the importance of raising sustainably the level of growth in this country, making sure that every part of the country contributes to that economic growth is absolutely vital.

On the regional investment that my noble friend talks about—in particular the transport investment that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, referred to—the previous Government made lots of grand plans but never funded any of those grand plans. What we are doing here is setting out a very careful strategic plan to connect our cities, connect our towns to our cities, and funding that fully, so that those transport connections are made and people are able to get around cities and regions, which is absolutely vital to economic growth. It is no good having the jobs, the skills, the towns and the housing if they are not connected and people cannot travel around to them. I think that is an absolutely vital part of getting growth throughout the country.