Covid-19: Transparency and Accuracy of Statistics

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is right that, statistically, care homes present a unique challenge. There are more than 15,000 care homes, many of which are not plugged into day-to-day statistical canvassing and, therefore, knowing exactly what happens in every care home every day is a particularly large challenge. However, we have thrown an enormous amount of resources at that problem, and our understanding of the care home situation in relation to Covid is much better than it was. The precise statistics she asks for today are not at my fingertips, but I would be glad to write to her with a number.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, would the Minister agree that it is an extremely serious matter when the statistics authority criticises government advisers’ use of statistics? If the public are to accept lockdown and all the restrictions involved, they need to have confidence in the statistics and that they are not speculative. Would the Minister agree that the graph with four scenarios for daily deaths from Covid, rising to 4,000 a day—a rate that exceeds that of Brazil, which has three times our population—should never have been shown at the Prime Minister’s press conference? If he does not agree with that, why was it subsequently modified?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend is entirely right: statistics are critical and very important to public trust. No one takes them more seriously than this Government. However, I remind him that it was not the statistics that the Office for Statistics Regulation expressed concern about; it was about material being used in press conferences that has not been published at the press conferences as they happened. That was a function of the speed at which that press conference was turned around, but he is entirely right that that chart had a presentational error in it, which was corrected. It was published as a result of the publication of the data behind it. I reassure him that the data upon which decisions were made and the data that went into the central case of that chart was correct, and the fact that we have changed it demonstrates that we are committed to transparency in all these matters.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2020

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

To move, as an amendment to the above Motion, at end to insert “but that this House regrets the failure of Her Majesty’s Government adequately to consult the public in the preparation of the Regulations and the impracticality of enforcing the measures”.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I have tabled this amendment to raise a few questions about the rule of six, on which I am grateful to the Minister for his comments. He has already conceded that there are lots of inconsistencies and injustices but that these are put there in the name of simplicity. However, for many people, that makes it more difficult for rules to be accepted as legitimate.

Many people want to know the basis on which the rules are made and the scientific basis for the rule of six. The very fact that there are different regimes in different countries in the UK, all based on exactly the same science, suggests that there cannot be a precise basis for the figure of six. Is it just fingers in the air for each country of the UK?

Six means that a family with four children cannot have a family gathering with even one set of grandparents. If a couple invites another couple from next door and have two children upstairs, that counts as six, but if the couple who have been invited have three children next door, for some reason the three do not count. How can this be logical and how can it be fair in terms of spreading the risk of infection? It does not make sense. Why cannot children under 12 all be exempt, as in Scotland and Wales? What is the point of the rule anyway, when one can go into a carriage on the Tube or into an office or supermarket and find oneself positively close to a lot more than six people?

It becomes more difficult to understand when one considers some of the exemptions; for example, that for “linked families” and “support bubbles”. What exactly is a linked family? What exactly is a support bubble? Who decides whether a support bubble is genuine or just a convenient excuse?

The SI that we are considering has a limit of 30 for a wedding, but it has already been altered to 15 in another statutory instrument. The 30-person limit was guidance and not law in July but overnight became a 15-person limit on 28 September without any parliamentary process. This law affects many couples and an important sector of the events industry. A rather dry, cynical, mathematical friend of mine pointed out that, at a wedding, there are two main participants: each gets seven and a half friends. At a funeral, there is one body, who gets four times as many friends. This may not be the most appropriate way of looking at it, but it has a certain logic. Can the Minister explain what his logic is and why it is superior?

There are so many different events. At a christening, is it true that a baby counts as one of the total for the six? As for Halloween on 31 October, apparently parents will be fined if children go trick-or-treating in groups of more than six. The fine, I am told, is £200; perhaps the Minister will tell me that it is £3,000. Is the person who answers the door to the trick-or-treater included in the total of six?

Edmund Burke once remarked that

“laws reach but a very little way.”

There is a limit on how far laws can influence behaviour, and a wise Government do not pass over-intrusive laws.

My amendment refers to the difficulty of enforcing these rules. How is this to be done? Will police officers force their way into private houses? The police in Glasgow have announced that they have already broken up 300 gatherings in private homes. What will this do for public support for the rules? Two Ministers have suggested that people should inform on their neighbours. It is one thing to report your neighbour if you see that he is building a bomb factory, but if he is holding a barbecue for seven people, are you really going to report him?

I deplore any suggestion that we should become a nation of informers like the old East Germany. As the Minister said, the whole point of the rule of six was to simplify things, but when the regional variations are added on top, it becomes absurdly complex. As well as the national rule of six, there are seven local regimes, and that is on top of the variations between the devolved Administrations. As we saw the other day, Ministers, including the Prime Minister, struggled to explain what the rules were in the north-east of England—I sympathise, with the “gotcha” journalists all around him—but ordinary people face fines if they do not know what the rules are. A noble Lord on the other side of the House drew my attention the other day to a cartoon in one of the newspapers which showed a man in a pub talking to his companion, and he said to him, “I’ve just downloaded a wonderful new app. It tells you whether in the last 14 days you’ve been in close proximity to anyone who understands the rules.”

My amendment refers also to the lack of consultation. With this SI, as with others, we have the element of retrospection. The SI was introduced on 13 September and became law one minute after midnight—which probably left some people breaking the law in the wrong house at the wrong time. Last week, MPs won the right to have a say in the implementation of national rules. That is welcome; I hope it will really happen, and it should have happened earlier. Local government matters. Some mayors have complained about a lack of emails, a lack of phone calls and no documentation.

Last week, when we had the debate, I put to the Minister a direct question which he did not answer. May I put it to him a second time? The Health Secretary has talked of eradicating—that is the word—the virus. The PM, in his interview on “The Andrew Marr Show”, referred to bringing the virus

“to an end in the speediest possible way”.

What does this mean? Other Ministers give the impression that government strategy is simply to suppress the virus until there is a vaccine. If so, what is there to stop the virus bouncing back every time the rules are relaxed? Are we to continue suppressing the economy until there is a vaccine? What happens if there is no early vaccine? That is the key question I hope the Minister will answer. What exactly is the government strategy?

I am not arguing that we should let the virus rip. We need rules, but we have not had satisfactory explanations. I do not intend to divide the House, but I say this to the Government: this cat’s cradle of rules is in danger of collapsing under its own weight. Popular consent is undermined by arbitrary rules that are hard to follow. For rules to have legitimacy, people need to understand the rationale, and above all, government needs to observe the appropriate limits of laws.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who spoke. We had an excellent debate, with many good speeches and many new points made. I also thank the Minister, for whom a lot of sympathy was rightly expressed. He comes here for debate after debate, is attacked and attacked, and bears it with great good humour and is absolutely on top of his brief. He said he heard the sense of frustration in this debate loud and clear and would take that away; I hope he conveys that to the Government. He emphasised again and again that the Government have more and more information. It is one thing to have that, but are we using it to get on top of the virus? I am not sure I heard an answer to my question about the virus just bouncing back every time we go through suppress, relax, suppress, relax.

There was near unanimity in the House that the message has not been clear. It is messy and confused, which makes compliance with the law more difficult. These are not just rules; they are laws. People are subject to arrests and fines. Compliance is much more difficult without public acceptance. Important points were also made about the need, as the Government have said, to consult Parliament well in advance of legislation. That is profoundly important, but I am grateful to the Minister for saying that he has heard the frustration of the House and will convey it back to the Government. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment withdrawn.

Coronavirus Act 2020: Temporary Provisions

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 28th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, it is a very great pleasure to congratulate my noble and learned friend Lord Clarke of Nottingham, as I must pinch myself to remember to call him. We go back a very long way. It is not a case of “Forty Years On” but more like 60 years on from when he enrolled me into the Conservative Association at university. We have been through many rites of passage together, including each other’s weddings and birthdays; indeed, he succeeded me as Chancellor. Enoch Powell once remarked that there is no such thing as friendship in politics. I do not think that is true. We have certainly remained good friends, despite disagreeing on the one great issue of the day.

My noble and learned friend is, I can tell the House, one of the most affable men in politics. He even forgave me for not voting for him as leader of the party. He has held almost every important job in government other than Foreign Secretary or the premiership. He has not, it is true, been a Scottish law officer—yet. But there is a vacancy, so who knows? He has been described as the best Prime Minister we never had. Some of his friends would say “If only he hadn’t been so Europhile”—but of course his integrity is one of the reasons he is so widely respected. He is a Prince Rupert of debate and we look forward to hearing from him many more times in future in this House.

I am grateful to the Chief Whip for saying that I could welcome my noble and learned friend before embarking on my four minutes. This is a very important debate. It is about not just health but individual liberty and accountability to Parliament. The powers that the Government have taken are far-reaching; some might call them draconian. The Minister has often said that this is a war. Well, I hope that it is not, like the war in Iraq, based on a dodgy dossier, or like the war in Afghanistan, which cannot be won and to which there is no end.

The strategy of the Government is unclear. We were originally told that the virus would be “licked”—that was the word—by July. Then, like the First World War, it was going to be all over by Christmas. Now we are looking at measures that may last until April. It seems that all we can do is to smooth the curve until the US cavalry arrives in the form of a vaccine—but in some films the US cavalry never arrives. There may be no vaccine, or it may give only partial immunity. Are we then to be condemned to an everlasting campaign of suppress, relax, suppress, relax, suppress, relax? If so, the economy will not survive. In August, people were paid by the Government to “Eat out to help out”. Then last week they were told not to eat after 10 pm. Why? In his Statement, the Prime Minister said that the Government had driven the virus into retreat but that the prospect of a second wave was always real. In other words, it bounced back. But is that not what it will do again? Will it not always be the case that all that lockdowns ever achieve is delay? I would like the Minister to answer that point directly.

Having repeated lockdowns while we wait for a vaccine is not a tenable strategy. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, if that is the future, we have to learn to live with the coronavirus without fear. We cannot ignore the economic cost of the Government’s measures. The Minister did not once mention the unintended economic costs of those measures. We need overall economic impact assessments for every measure, and for economists to be included in the ineptly called SAGE.

The Minister has argued that it is not the Government who destroy jobs but the virus. Let us be clear: government measures, taken for good reason certainly, do have the consequence of destroying jobs and businesses. The record 20% fall in GDP in the second quarter was a direct result of the lockdown. The Government talk about saving only viable jobs, but many firms would be viable were it not for the restrictions that have been imposed. Does the Minister really think that theatres, gyms or neighbourhood restaurants are not viable? Are football clubs with full stadiums not viable?

There is a lot more bad news to come on the employment front. Many firms are holding on by the skin of their teeth. The longer the restrictions last, the more difficult it will be for them and the economy to recover. No one envies the Government their almost impossible task, but they need to show that they have made their decisions on a basis that takes into account the economic costs. There is, in the end, a price that we will not be able to afford. We cannot have a situation in which the cure is worse than the disease. I agree with those who say that we need greater parliamentary involvement. It is not enough for the Government simply to say, “We know best”.

Covid-19: Medically Vulnerable People

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Lord makes a reasonable point, but I confirm that it is the virus that makes this discrimination, not the Government. Certain demographics are even more vulnerable than others. It is an unfortunate fact that those who are medically vulnerable are singled out by the virus. We have to put in place measures to protect and safeguard their lives.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

Following up on the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Truscott, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, when we eventually get to the stage of lifting restrictions I urge the Government not to discriminate against the elderly on the grounds of vulnerability and not to treat them as a single category. Many of the elderly—over half a million—continue to work. They feel acutely the separation from loved ones. They are conscious of their own vulnerability, are perfectly sensible and do not need the threat of law to protect them. Will the Minister remind his colleagues when decisions come to be made about lifting restrictions that the decision is not just for scientists? It is a political question as well. Policy that might be acceptable in China might not be acceptable here.

[Lord Bethell]

My noble friend is entirely right that the political context in Britain is based on rule by consent. We are not an authoritarian state. However, I cannot hide from my noble friend the point that I made to the noble Lord, Lord Truscott: it is the virus that is a discriminator, not the Government. The clinical assessment of risk for many older people, particularly those with medical conditions, is very high. The Government will be guided by clinical advice in their advice and recommendations to all groups, although the effect of safeguarding and lockdown on the elderly is fully understood. We will put in as many mitigation measures as we can to prevent any long-term harm.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, could my noble friend clarify some of the stories about possible future steps that the Government might take, particularly regarding those over 70? There have been some stories about a relatively draconian policy of self-isolation for a very long time that might itself promote certain health problems in those people if the isolation were carried out to that extent. This story appeared in newspapers. On the other hand, we have had the statement by the Chief Medical Officer of Scotland saying that Scotland would not follow such a policy but would be more limited in calling on elderly people to cut back their social contacts by 20% or something like that. Do I take it from today’s Statement that the latter version of the policy is the direction in which we are going?

[Lord Bethell]

My noble friend is entirely right to ask about the exact guidance. I will be clear: everyone in the country is being asked to cut out non-essential social intercourse and to work from home where possible. In the case of over-70s, that is particularly true. If you are over 70, the guidance is very clear: you should take great care of yourself because you are in a very difficult position. Those who have underlying conditions, whether they are over 70 or not, must take particular care of themselves.

As the CMO explained very clearly earlier today, the advice is moving towards those people distancing themselves or even shielding themselves completely from social intercourse. My noble friend Lord Lamont is entirely right that that comes at an enormous cost. Isolation and loneliness will be extremely difficult challenges for those involved. There is a massive mental health issue on the horizon. As a community and as a country, we are going to have to figure out how we come together to provide support for those who have made the entirely right and responsible decision to stay away from society.

Coronavirus

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Lord asks an important question. The truth is that it is more of an art than a science. Efforts were made to look at clear metrics for triggering this result, but it is a complex situation and our understanding continues to develop. It is ultimately up to the judgment of the CMO and the confidence of the Secretary of State to make that call.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, how many intensive care facilities are at upwards of 90% of utilisation and what can be done to increase the amount of facilities for people who need respiratory aid? What additional intensive care units could be created and what other facilities could be made available?

[Lord Bethell]

Enormous effort is being put into increasing the number of intensive care facilities, particularly in the area of respiratory support. Different types of respiratory support unit are being put in place and the number is increasing on a multiple rather than an arithmetic scale.

It is not just the kit that is an issue but the people needed to operate it, because these units and the respiratory machinery are extremely technical. We are putting enormous effort into ensuring that the right people are in place to work the machines.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved on Thursday 19 December 2019 by

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:

“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.”

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford) (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great honour to open this debate on Her Majesty’s gracious Speech. I am delighted to be joined by my noble friend Lord Younger, who will, I know, brilliantly close what I am sure will be a constructive and lively debate. We will consider in detail the Government’s proposed approach to economic affairs, business and public services. The key theme linking all those areas is the overarching objective to invest in our future prosperity. Given that, I am sure that there will be unanimous support for that priority across the House, and I look forward to hearing your Lordships’ expert contributions on its implementation.

There is no question but that the gracious Speech sets out an ambitious agenda for reform. There might be some who will be tempted to give an opinion on that but I will not apologise for what is a challenging and bold approach and for a Government who are restless for opportunity and renewal. This is a Government who are re-energised, reinvigorated and refocused on the right priorities, with a driving purpose to deliver real change for British people up and down this country.

If we put aside for just one moment the small matter of Brexit, noble Lords will not be surprised to hear me say that there can be no higher priority than the NHS. It is therefore my pleasure to open this debate by updating the House on the Government’s plans for improving healthcare.

As noble Lords will no doubt be aware, we have already committed to increase NHS funding, amounting to an extra £33.9 billion in cash terms annually by 2023-24. This is the single largest commitment to the health service ever undertaken by a peacetime British Government. Furthermore, in the first 100 days of this Parliament, we will bring forward legislation to enshrine this multiyear funding settlement in law. This is the first time that a Government have delivered such a commitment in legislation and its purpose is to give unprecedented financial certainty and to allow the NHS to plan with security for years to come.

The NHS long-term plan has been drawn up by those who know the NHS best, so that we can guarantee that it is not just about money but about how we spend it effectively. It has been drawn up by health and care staff, and patients and their families, along with experts in their fields. It sets out an approach for making sure that this extra funding goes as far as possible, ensuring that every pound is invested in the things that matter most.

Supporting the NHS in delivering the long-term plan is a priority for the Government and we are carefully considering options for targeted legislation to enable this. These targeted changes will reduce bureaucracy and improve collaboration across the NHS, ensuring that it evolves to meet the challenges of prevention, integration and technology, and enabling local partners to work together to deliver a healthier nation where we can care for people throughout their lives.

A key part of this strategy is, as we have debated many times in this place, fixing our social care system, which is clearly under pressure and which, in turn, contributes to the unprecedented demand on the NHS. To meet this rising demand, we are already providing councils with access to an additional £1.5 billion for social care next year. This comprises an additional £1 billion of grant funding for both adults’ and children’s social care, and a proposed 2% to enable councils to access a further £500 million from 2020-21. Of course, this is not only about money. We are determined to find a long-term solution to meet the challenges in social care to ensure that every person is treated with dignity and offered the security that they deserve. Therefore, alongside the additional funding, we will seek to build cross-party consensus to bring forward the necessary legislation to implement social care reform. For the avoidance of doubt, we have pledged that these reforms will ensure that no one needing care will be forced to sell their home to pay for it.

Furthermore, the Government have promised to put mental health on an equal footing with physical health. As the Mental Health Act is nearly 40 years old, modernisation of this Act is critical. Therefore, we will publish a White Paper early this year, setting out the Government’s response to Simon Wessely’s independent review and our vision for wide-ranging reform. We will then bring forward a new mental health Bill to amend the Act. This work is important but it is also complex. Given our experience—in this place particularly—with the Mental Capacity Act, I think we can all agree that it is right that these long-term changes are made with care and consensus. Through these reforms, we hope and intend to empower patients and remove inequalities in our mental health system.

In my role as a Minister for Health, I have particular responsibility for promoting innovation across the industry. We all have reasons to be grateful for the medical innovations that have become available through the NHS over its 70-year history, from the first clinical trial into scurvy, to proton beam therapy and mass vaccination programmes. The Medicines and Medical Devices Bill will give us the necessary powers in UK law to update the current regulatory systems for human and veterinary medicines, clinical trials and medical devices. The Bill will enable us to cement our position as a world leader in the licensing and regulation of innovative medicines and medical devices after we leave the European Union, and will ensure that we have a regulatory system with robust standards and patient safety at its heart. The Bill is very much part of our agenda to modernise regulation, supporting early clinical trials and the production of personalised medicines but also the development of ever more sophisticated and safe medical devices.

I am proud to say that Britain is a nation of innovators, with many world-changing innovations and inventions pioneered here in the United Kingdom. The Government are committed to continuing to push the frontiers of science and technology via boosting R&D funding and developing proposals for a new, high-risk funding body to ensure that we remain at the forefront and competitive globally. We are equally ambitious in the scale of our commitment to the environment. We are the first country to legislate for long-term climate targets; we are world leaders in offshore wind and green finance; and there are now nearly 400,000 jobs in low-carbon industries and their supply chains. We will continue to lead the way in tackling climate change, encouraging new industries that will boost our productivity and growth as an early supplier of new, low-carbon technologies globally.

Our future, though, depends on the strength of our great cities. We have promised a White Paper on devolution, and I think all of us in this place agree that there is a powerful case for empowering every region and levelling up opportunity across every corner of this country. To unleash the potential across city centres in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, we need to invest in the factors that contribute to economic growth: a strong labour market, education, land for housing, infrastructure and more.

Our labour market is in its strongest position in years, with a UK employment rate of over 76%, almost three-quarters of which is in full-time jobs, but we are committed to going even further. This Government are determined to make the United Kingdom the best place to work in the world. Through the employment rights Bill, we will continue to deliver on our pledge to bring about the greatest reform of workers’ rights in 20 years. The gracious Speech confirms the Chancellor’s promise that the national living wage will increase and that, provided economic conditions allow, it will reach two-thirds of median earnings within five years. Also, within five years, the Government plan to expand the reach of the national living wage to everyone aged 21 and over. Taken together, we expect these changes to benefit 4 million low-paid workers. As assured in our manifesto, the Government will also increase the national insurance threshold to £9,500 next year—a tax cut for 31 million people, with a typical employee paying around £100 less in 2020-21.

Record numbers of people are now working and saving for retirement, with 87% of employees saving into a workplace pension in 2018, an increase of 55% since 2012. This shows that people are preparing for their future but, even with this success, we know that we must do more. Everyone in this place has commented on this in my hearing. That is why the Pension Schemes Bill will put protection of people’s pensions at its heart and sets out the next phase of pensions reform, building on consensus across the pensions industry and the political spectrum. On a personal level, I also very much welcome the urgent review undertaken by the Department of Health and Social Care and HM Treasury into the annual allowance taper to fix the pensions system so that senior clinicians can take on extra shifts without the fear of an unexpected tax bill.

Our nation’s productivity is no more and no less than the combined talents and efforts of people up and down this country. Therefore, the next part of our plan to make Britain fit for the future is to improve the quality of our education system. Importantly, the OECD’s PISA results show that the UK already outperforms the OECD’s average for reading, maths and science, and that performance has recently improved significantly in maths. It is especially welcome that this has been driven by improvements for lower-attaining pupils. However, our work is far from finished. That is why we have announced a cash boost to schools of £2.6 billion next year, rising to an additional £7.1 billion in 2022-23. This means that per-pupil funding in every school will increase in cash terms, and it will rise higher than inflation in most schools. The settlement underlines our determination to recognise teaching as the high-value prestigious profession that it is. It ensures that pay can increase for all teachers, with teachers’ starting salaries increasing to £30,000 by 2022-23. That represents an increase of up to 25%. On further education, we have already introduced the first part of the national retraining scheme and we will invest an additional £3 billion in the National Skills Fund, which will build on existing reforms to ensure that British workers are equipped with the skills they need to thrive and prosper for a lifetime in work.

Key to ensuring a lifetime of prosperity, to recruitment and to raising the productivity of our country is building more homes and creating a fairer property market. We know that this is true. In the last year, therefore, we have delivered over 241,000 additional homes. That is the highest level in over 30 years. During this Parliament, we will implement measures to encourage shared ownership, help local families on to the housing ladder and speed up the build of affordable housing. This Government are working to deliver a rental system fit for the future, which is why we are introducing the Renters’ Reform Bill to protect tenants and support landlords to provide the good-quality homes that we know this nation needs. It is also necessary that we undertake urgent action to respond to Dame Judith Hackett’s independent review of building regulations and fire safety. Working together to learn the lessons of Grenfell, we will bring forward a building safety Bill and a fire safety Bill as soon as possible. I know that the House understands the urgency of those steps.

Turning to transport, Her Majesty’s gracious Speech contained a series of measures to tackle urban congestion and transport links—it is no good trying to boost productivity if people cannot get to work on time—both here in the UK and with trading partners around the world. Our ageing airspace system has not been updated since the 1960s, so the Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill will bring forward measures to modernise airspace, making flights faster, cleaner and quieter and giving the police greater enforcement powers to effectively tackle the unlawful use of unmanned aircrafts, including drones.

Earlier this year we successfully brought home 150,000 Thomas Cook passengers stranded overseas in the largest ever peacetime repatriation. But that operation was complex and costly, so we will bring forward a number of reforms to deal with airline insolvency that will provide oversight of airlines in financial trouble and help passengers to return home speedily and efficiently. Furthermore, we are determined to protect passengers from the misery of transport strikes, so we have announced plans to keep a minimum number of services running during transport strikes, ensuring that unions can no longer hold the travelling public to ransom. We will also implement widespread reform to the rail industry, following the Williams review, to improve performance and reliability, simplify fares and ticketing and introduce a stronger railway commercial model.

This Government are steadfastly committed to a path of budget responsibility in the context of what I have outlined as an ambitious reform agenda. Our economic plan will be underpinned by a responsible fiscal strategy, investing in public services and infrastructure while keeping borrowing and debt under control. As a country we are in a strong position, not by accident but by design. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that this year the UK economy will grow faster than those of France, Germany, Italy and Japan. The deficit has reduced by four-fifths since 2009-10. We have seen the economy grow every year since 2010. There are 3.7 million more people in work now than there were in 2010, and the proportion of low-paid jobs is at its lowest in 20 years.

All this is good news that I am sure will be welcomed by every Member of this House, and thanks to this we can now invest more in growing our economy and public services. That is why this Government are proposing a step change in infrastructure investment to deliver sustainable and inclusive growth. We will implement an infrastructure revolution, helping to ensure that productivity and opportunity are spread to every part of this country. That is why the gracious Speech has confirmed plans to publish a national infrastructure strategy, which will act as a blueprint for the future of infrastructure investment across the whole of the United Kingdom. It will examine how, through infrastructure investment, we can address that most critical and pressing of challenges—decarbonisation—and set out plans to turbocharge gigabit-capable broadband rollout and improve energy and transport infrastructure.

In closing, it is my fervent belief that Her Majesty’s gracious Speech affirms our commitment to invest in an ambitious agenda and level up opportunity and quality of life in every corner of the United Kingdom. We will invest to reform education to deliver social mobility. We will invest to build homes, infrastructure and economic opportunity to help raise living standards. We will invest in our NHS to make it the most sustainable and high-quality healthcare system in the world. I know that as legislation comes forward there will be expert and challenging debates in this place in which the collective wisdom and experience of the House will be called on to the full. I also know that in this place we share a common commitment to a fairer, more innovative and prosperous Britain. I look forward to delivering on that with each and every Member in this Chamber.