Spending Review 2025

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

Yes. The noble Baroness says that we are not spending enough on the health service. Over the next five years, £30 billion will be invested in day-to-day spending, with over £5 billion specifically allocated to address the most critical issues. The noble Baroness likes to tell us how she does not believe in economic growth. If we do not have economic growth, how will we find the money to fund our public services? I sat through the national insurance Bill. The noble Baroness opposed it and the additional money that it brought into our National Health Service. She says that this is not enough money. How exactly is she going to find the money? She is mouthing “wealth taxes”. If she thinks a wealth tax is going to raise that many billion pounds, I would love to see her proposals.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, the capital investment contained in the spending review will be very welcome in many parts of the country. The problem will be making sure that it is money well spent. As those of us who were here in the morning heard, public bodies often are not the greatest at making sure they can build a door, let alone a motorway. How will the Government ensure that we get value for money on our projects? Just having an office called the “office for value for money” might not be enough. I was cheered that the Chancellor said the amount of money being spent on consultants had come down. Can the Minister put a figure on that and tell us what the budget for consultants over the next few years will be?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I do not have the specific budget for consultants over the next few years to hand. I am more than happy to write to her with that figure if it is available. She is right that we have reduced the number of consultants. It ballooned under the previous Government, who like to talk about saving money but did not always walk the walk.

We are investing an additional £113 billion in capital spending, which is enabling so many of the projects that we are discussing today. It would not be possible if we had not rewritten the fiscal rules that we inherited from the previous Government, which guaranteed neither stability nor investment. We inherited such a poor public infrastructure situation from them as they repeatedly cut investment spending to patch up the holes in their day-to-day spending. The noble Baroness mentioned the change to the fiscal rules. Alongside the fiscal rules, we have set out very clear guard-rails to ensure that that money is spent wisely and carefully through public finance institutions. I am very confident that we have set out those guard-rails and will ensure that we get the value for money that she is describing.

Basel 3.1

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

Quite simply, we are not.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

Could the Minister reassure the House that simply not wanting to pay any more tax would not be a reason for renegotiating?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am happy to give the House that assurance.

Closed-Ended Investment Companies: Cost Disclosure

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are considering to ensure that investors in UK-listed closed-ended investment companies are not disadvantaged relative to investors in open-ended funds as a result of cost disclosure requirements and investment platforms refusing to allow transactions related to them.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Livermore) (Lab)]

My Lords, last year, the Government legislated to reform retail disclosure so that it is fairer and more proportionate. Recognising the concerns mentioned in the Question, the Government also took exceptional action to exempt investment companies from cost disclosure requirements to provide interim relief while the replacement regime is finalised. Operationalising this legislation is now a matter for industry and the regulator.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response, but despite the Government’s welcome SI, and FCA emergency guidance last November, some retail platforms continue to ban customers from investing in UK investment trusts that do not disclose their ongoing charging figures, even though those figures are misleading, as the Government accept. Will the Minister hold urgent talks with the FCA to insist that this barrier to investment be removed immediately?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for the question. I also pay tribute to other noble Lords, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Altmann and Lady Bowles, for their continued championing of the investment trust sector and for bringing their concerns to the Government’s attention in their Private Members’ Bills in this Parliament and the previous one. As a result of their campaigning, the Government have now legislated to provide the Financial Conduct Authority with tailored powers to deliver a new disclosure regime. The Government have also temporarily exempted investment companies from cost disclosure legislation.

On the specific matter raised by the Question, of requirements by investment platforms for the investments they offer, that is now a matter for the industry and the regulator. While I recognise that the Government may not have gone as far as the noble Baroness would like, we have a shared objective of ensuring that that this reform achieves the right outcomes for investment companies and for the sector as a whole.

Growing the UK Economy

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her question. I know that this is an area in which she is particularly expert—far more expert, I am sure, than I am. I will say a couple of things. First, I completely agree: it is often said to me that the UK is a very good place to start a business and a less good place to scale up a business. I think that has to be central to our thinking when it comes to economic growth and growing those small businesses. When it comes to entrepreneurs and those who we want to take greater risks in our economy, one of the most important things we can do is ensure economic stability, because the more stable the economy is, the more willing people are to take the risks that we want them to take. She asks about employment rights. All the evidence now suggests that, the more secure a workforce is, the more productive it is. We were talking about productivity before and, on secure rights for workers, workers who are more economically secure are going to be more productive workers in the economy.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister acknowledged the importance of resetting relations with the EU. I understand the importance of sticking to the golden rules his party has laid down about not rejoining the single market or the EU customs union, but does he acknowledge that it is really important to improve those trading relations as quickly as possible? Therefore, will the Government not just discuss but pursue wholeheartedly joining the pan-Euro-Mediterranean convention?

Competition and Markets Authority Chairman

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

I agree that the role of the CMA is to make sure that it is providing fair, open and transparent competition within all industries. While I will not comment on the specifics of any individual case, I think the CMA in that example is doing its best to represent that competition. The Government will continue to stand by that; supporting the CMA’s operational independence, so that it can carry on doing that role as effectively as it can, is something that this Government prioritise.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

How does the Minister expect the CMA to balance the desperate search for short-term growth with the long-term needs of consumers? Is there not a risk of a repeat of what light-touch regulation in financial services produced, leading to the 2008 financial crash?

Financial Assistance to Ukraine Bill

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading
Wednesday 15th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, what an honour it is to follow such a brilliant maiden speech. Clearly, the noble Baroness, Lady Batters, has overcome any fear of public speaking. What she is not afraid of is bringing not just her knowledge and intelligence but her emotion to this Chamber, and we should applaud her for it. It will be an honour for the Chamber to have in its presence a woman who has brought such change to the farming industry, who has been a voice that many of us will have been very familiar with. I feel that I have woken up with Minette Batters over many years, courtesy of Radio 4. Now it is a delight to see her here among us and to listen to her impassioned speech on behalf of an industry to which she has given so much.

We should be aware that the noble Baroness is a co-founder of Ladies in Beef. Even women who are not great meat-eaters may feel that that organisation gives them something to strengthen their resolve in holding their own in what may still, for some, be a bit of a man’s world. I am also intrigued to see that she has chosen to be the noble Baroness, Lady Batters, of Downton. No abbey was mentioned, but perhaps there is a new series in the making—I am sure we will all look forward to it. I also thank the noble Baroness for bringing the attention of the Chamber to the plight of farming in Ukraine, the importance of farming to all of us, and the importance of food security—which, of course, brings me to the Bill.

I welcome the Bill as far as it goes—but how much further it could and should go. The money pledged in it is a fraction of what Ukraine needs. Restricting the funds involved to the income that would be generated by the Russian assets frozen in the EU is simply not enough. Others have already talked about this. Huge Russian assets have been frozen which should be handed to Ukraine as quickly as possible.

The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, voiced concerns about such a move, but even some of her colleagues in the other place have come to this conclusion and have voiced their views not only there but in a letter to the Times on 6 January. They say that there is at least £25 billion in UK accounts which the Government should hand over, and now. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, made an eloquent plea for the UK to be braver, and I commend his stance, although, like him, I would not wish to do anything to jeopardise the Bill directing funds to Ukraine as quickly as possible. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newham, raised this issue too.

There are those who have qualms about the legitimacy of a country not only freezing another’s assets but seizing them. However, that view is based on the concept of sovereign immunity, and I argue that Russia has forgone any right to such immunity. Many will feel that Putin’s outrageous assault on Ukraine is enough to have cost it any immunity. But it is Russia’s behaviour in the UK which surely has eradicated any such rights. Russian operatives have come to the UK with the sole purpose of committing murder. Whether it was the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko or the Salisbury poisonings, they showed no respect for the sovereignty of this country. Why, then, should we respect sovereign immunity in the case of Putin’s Russia?

If Canada and the US can be braver, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, explained, can the Minister explain why the UK is still only considering its position on whether it can go any further on such a vital issue? It might be one small step towards redressing the unedifying reputation the UK has gained as a hub for dirty money. The “London laundromat” was a popular destination for Russia’s billions, which was often money obtained through dubious means. The former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was praised for his staunch support for Ukraine’s fight, and it is true that he was there at the beginning. But it was also Boris Johnson who, in 2010, as Mayor of London, opened a new department at City Hall devoted entirely to attracting Russian investment to London, and I beg to suggest that not all that investment came from the most respectable of sources. I am not sure that that was top of the list of priorities at the time.

Bill Browder has gained a very big reputation for his bravery in pushing through the Magnitsky Act in many legislatures around the world. He had good reason to do that, as he had fallen victim to the Russian state and his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was murdered in jail in Russia—or at least, he died there, and it was thought not to have been accidental. Because of that, Browder has worked steadfastly to get people alive to exactly what is going on in that country and to take action, rather than just speaking about it.

One of the reasons that he cites, which others have not yet mentioned but which we really should be taking account of, is that, if this war is not won, it will precipitate a refugee crisis that will make the small boats look minuscule in proportion. The refugees will flood not from Ukraine but from all the neighbouring territories that are so fearful of what a powerful Russia might do next. The numbers are put at anything up to 25 million. That is one reason—if only one were required—why urgent action is required to get the money to Ukraine and to get it there quickly, handing over the income from the money that is held in the EU, let alone the UK. However, doing it in three tranches, as this Bill talks about, may be a start, but it is such a small start. Surely, the UK could and should do more.

International Banking: Payments

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

The answer to the noble Lord’s first question, in terms of whether we consider them effective, is yes. In the case of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, these measures have dramatically reduced Russia’s access to global financial markets and weakened its ability to finance its illegal invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s increasing reliance on North Korean and Iranian weapons highlights the impact these sanctions have had. We will pursue any necessary steps with our allies to maintain and reduce opportunities for the circumvention or evasion of international sanctions.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that a sensible use of the sanctions now might be to seize the money that has been taken and sanctioned from the Russian regime and give it to the Ukrainians now, while they can use it?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

That is very much the spirit that lies behind the Financial Assistance to Ukraine Bill, which will shortly be before your Lordships’ House. The Financial Assistance to Ukraine Bill provides spending authority for the UK to implement our commitment to the G7 Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration Loans to Ukraine scheme, a landmark agreement which provides a collective £50 billion to Ukraine.

Autumn Budget 2024

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, the UK economy has been in structural decline for many years; that analysis is absolutely true. My only surprise on hearing it delivered during this debate was that it came from a leading economist sitting on the Conservative Benches. The noble Baroness, Lady Moyo, at least had the decency to acknowledge the state of this economy—an economy that has been run for 14 years in a way that has left it, as she said, in structural decline. So it is very difficult for anybody to come up with a Budget that will put things right overnight.

Things were made worse, of course, by Liz Truss. Just two years ago, inflation in this country was running at more than 11%. We have not heard much about that from the Benches opposite this evening. Nevertheless, the ramifications of that continue to be felt by people up and down this country. The Resolution Foundation reckons that Liz Truss alone cost the country £30 billion. That is a significant contribution to anybody’s black hole. No Chancellor would want to start from here—but Rachel Reeves had no choice.

She made things even harder for herself by making a series of promises that I am sure she has already come to regret. As an editor, I would have had some difficulty justifying them as having been kept, in the light of what she has done during the Budget. National insurance by any other name is a tax, and increasing employers’ national insurance ends up being a tax on working people—and let us not get into a semantics debate about what constitutes a working person. I think it is probably rather wider than the definition Ms Reeves has ended up with. Nevertheless, this is where she had to start from. It was not a great hand and it could probably have been better addressed.

But there are some things in this Budget which I really do applaud, including the change in the fiscal rules. Despite what we just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, it is sensible to borrow for investment. It is what households do and it is what a Government could and should do. We need investment, we need big projects—but we do not need to overspend, so the monitoring of those projects has to be absolutely watertight. It has to be constant and it has to be totally transparent. We cannot find ourselves in the sort of mess that HS2 has got into, where nobody really seemed to have a handle on what was being committed. So let us invest, but invest carefully.

Let us not go anywhere near PFI, which was disastrous. As others have said, we are still paying the price. I would like to see the Government look at what is left of those PFI contracts and, if they cannot renegotiate—in most cases, they cannot—they need to find a way to simply break the contract. There are PFI hospitals which have to spend ludicrous amounts on changing a lightbulb, when what they need to do is spend money on patients. So, if you cannot renegotiate, find a means of either putting the health authority into bankruptcy or walking away from the contract. We cannot afford them any longer.

I was pleased to hear, in the Budget, that we are going to spend more on trying to find the tax that people should have paid. An estimated £5 billion a year goes on tax evasion—let us have some, or all, of that back in the Government’s coffers. Investing in more inspectors will be a great way of making a start on that, but we also need much more investment in technology and we need to be tougher on finding where this money is.

We need to make sure that we actually tax what needs taxing, and we need to simplify the tax system. It is crazy having a tax guide that now runs to more than 1,000 pages—the last Tolley’s guide was 1,020. But we have done away with the Office of Tax Simplification. So let us see the Government pledge to simplify the tax system and begin looking at how to do that. It is crazy: people do not understand it and those who do, pay expensive advisers to avoid or evade tax. We need to change it.

The main thing we need to—in the short term, and easily—is simplify the system of property tax. I urge the Government to do that.

United Kingdom Declining Birth Rate

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

To clarify, the OBR is very clear that, over the next five years, employment will grow by 1.2 million people.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation calculates that 30% of children are living in poverty. Does the Minister have access to any information on what that might mean for long-term fertility prospects in this country?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes a very important point, which is why reducing child poverty is central to this Government’s objectives. The previous Labour Government made massive strides towards reducing child poverty and, unfortunately, we had to sit and watch while it rose under the party opposite over 14 years. We have established the Child Poverty Taskforce to ensure it falls. It is a contributing factor, but so are affordable housing and affordable childcare, as I have said, and we are prioritising all those things.

Fiscal Rules

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

It may surprise the noble Lord but, yes, I absolutely agree with what he says. That will be a vital part of the guard-rails we set out in the Budget tomorrow.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, borrowing to invest in genuine projects that will improve the productivity of the country obviously makes sense, but if the Government are going to look at the fiscal rules again, will they consider when and how they will account for unfunded public sector pensions? At some stage, the country needs to know about those obligations too.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I hear what the noble Baroness says. As I have said already, the Chancellor will set out the Government’s full fiscal plan, including the precise details of our fiscal rules, in tomorrow’s Budget.