Elections: Electoral Commission Recommendations

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My noble friend makes a valid point: there is a small number of noble Lords who can have some claim to democratic representation. Whether my noble friend would extend that argument to the argument that we should all be elected, I very much doubt.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I may pursue the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, on foreign funds coming in to influence British politics. The Minister will recall that the Foreign Secretary suggested last weekend that the CBI’s receipt of EU funds discredited the remarks it was making. The CBI receives I think 1% of its funding from the European Commission. If one were to apply that test to Vote Leave, or perhaps even to the Conservative Party as far as Russian funding is concerned given the donations to it, it would raise awkward questions. Could the Government look at the requirement for even greater transparency in political donations, and donations to think tanks and charities of one sort or another, where foreign Governments and foreign sources, whether in the Gulf states or among right-wing millionaires in the United States, come in to affect British politics and society?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord raises a serious issue. I do not know whether he has had the time to read the Electoral Commission’s report on digital campaigning, subtitled Increasing Transparency for Voters, but it makes recommendations on the specific areas he raised. There are a series of recommendations about foreign involvement in the democratic process and recommendations about transparency on where money has come from, with particular injunctions on the social media to make it clear, when they put advertisements on their sites, who has paid for them. This is an important issue and to some extent it is embraced in the report I just referred to.

Capita

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for his questions. I will try to answer all of them. On the question of a strategic approach, he will know that a new chairman, Ian Powell, was appointed last year and a new chief executive, Jon Lewis, in December. Jon Lewis has made it clear that he is in the process of putting together what he calls a “transformation programme”. Yesterday’s announcement was part of that process. The market’s response shows that it now has confidence in the new leadership team at Capita.

The noble Lord then asked why the Government are wedded to Capita. I have looked at the major central government contracts that have been awarded to Capita: 20% were awarded by the last Labour Government, just over 50% by the coalition Government and the balance by the current Government. So, it is not the case that we are more wedded than previous Administrations to the concept of using private providers and outsourcing contracts to get the best value for money. Appropriate contingency plans are in place for each contract. They depend on the nature of the contract—that is, whether others could immediately take over if there was a problem. Major contracts have terms that give contracting authorities the freedom to act in the event of supplier failure, including financial distress. I assure the noble Lord that appropriate contingency plans are in place for these contracts.

Turning to the noble Lord’s question about small providers and SMEs, the Government are anxious to break up these large contracts wherever possible to enable more SMEs to bid for them. During the Easter Recess, the Minister announced a whole raft of measures designed to boost opportunities for small businesses to gain government work. He is right to point out how important SMEs are. They provide 16 million jobs in this country and we are committed to ensuring that they are treated fairly by large suppliers. The Government have a target of HMG spend on SMEs. It was 25% but is now 33%, so I think we are at one on that issue.

On paying subcontractors promptly, Capita is currently paying 80% of invoice value to SMEs within 30 days and has plans to raise that to a higher percentage. I hope that deals with the thrust of the noble Lord’s questions.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, are the Government considering an overall review of the privatisation and outsourcing process? This is not just about Carillion and Capita. I have been reading about the problems that Serco has been going through and the recovery programme that it is now undertaking. I have been reading a little about the problems that G4S has had over the past few years in delivering some of the services it promised. There seems to be an underlying problem of large and diverse outsourcing companies, which are extremely good at drawing up contracts, managing to crowd out SMEs.

When I was a Minister, I remember being told that SMEs lose out because they are not as good at preparing contracts and spending the money in presenting them—so they end up as the subcontractors—and that we are therefore facing an oligopoly of diverse, major companies that successive Governments have allowed to grow, as the Minister said. What can be done to encourage more SMEs to become prime contractors? If I may say so, allowing more local authorities to take responsibility would help a great deal because more local suppliers would then be able to do so. The centralisation of these diverse outsourcing companies means that decisions are taken in London and small outsourcing companies in Leeds, Manchester and elsewhere end up as subcontractors. That is very bad for local enterprise. Are the Government now considering an overview of the sector and considering that competition policy needs to be rather more active here?

I have one final comment. I am very conscious that there is a problem of oligopoly in a number of sectors, with accountancy being a major example. Do we not need now to break up some of these oligopolies?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

There is nothing ideological about this. Governments of all persuasions have found that outsourcing certain activities enables them to focus on the key functions of government. A recent survey by the CBI showed that overall there was a saving of roughly 11% by going through the process of outsourcing activities, engaging competitive markets and awarding the contract to the contractor best able to meet the objectives.

I entirely agree with what the noble Lord said about SMEs. I think there is a contract with HMRC which, when it came to an end, we broke down into component parts. As I said in response to the noble Lord, an additional measure that we have taken is that, when a main contractor is slow in paying the subcontractors, that main contractor will be deleted from the opportunity to bid for future contracts. That is a good example of the steps that we are taking.

Subcontractors will have greater access to buying authorities to report payment performances, and suppliers will have to advertise subcontracting opportunities on the Contracts Finder website. Without repeating what I said a moment ago, we have a target of driving up from 25% to 33% the percentage of government spend with SMEs on these major contracts.

Civil Service Impartiality

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

So far as Ministers are concerned—I answer for Ministers, not for Back-Bench Members of Parliament—the Minister concerned made a fulsome apology in another place on 2 February. He said:

“I accept that I should have corrected or dismissed the premise of my hon. Friend’s question. I have apologised to Mr Charles Grant, who is an honest and trustworthy man. As I have put on record many times, I have the highest regard for our hard-working civil servants. I am grateful for this opportunity to correct the record and I apologise to the House”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/2/18; col. 1095.]

The noble Lord generously referred to my experience as a Minister. I think I have done 20 years on and off—probably more than anyone else in this House—but with many discontinuities, and I have never had occasion to question the impartiality or objectivity of civil servants. They have spoken truth unto power. They have quite often said things that I did not want to hear, but I would never accuse them of some of the things that have recently been levied against them. I think we should be proud of our Civil Service, and I reject the smears that have been made against it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will recognise that this is not just a British issue. The current attack by the President and his Administration on the FBI in the United States raises rather similar issues. Can the Minister assure us publicly that, when we say that civil servants are expected to be impartial, they are not expected to be impartial between evidence and supposition, and that when Ministers prefer faith or fantasy to evidence, civil servants have the right to point out that good governance depends on paying attention to the evidence, wherever one can find it?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. I quoted a moment ago the Civil Service Code, which includes objectivity. Objectivity is defined as,

“basing your advice and decisions on rigorous analysis of the evidence”.

It is these standards for which our Civil Service is renowned.

Brexit: Devolved Administrations

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

We want to reach consensus with the devolved Administrations on which powers go straight through and which are retained under what is called a common framework. If one looks at the communiqué that was issued at the end of the last meeting, one can see that real progress was made. I think the devolved Administrations concede that some powers will have to be subject to what is called a common framework, for the reasons that I outlined. Greater clarity on this will be obtained once we hit Clause 11 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill in the other place. There are a number of amendments along the lines of those referred to by the noble Lord on resolving that issue but, at the moment, we believe that the Joint Ministerial Committee is the right place to try to seek agreement quickly. It may be possible to release some of the powers immediately we leave the European Union, if good progress can be made.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, do the Government recognise that the interests of the English regions, which are different from those of London and the south-east, risk being pushed to one side in dialogue between the devolved Administrations and the central Government in London? The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, has already touched on this. The population of Yorkshire is slightly larger than that of Scotland; the economy is as large. As a region it will be affected quite severely by the loss of EIB funding and a whole range of other things. What mechanism do the Government envisage to bring the interests of England outside the south-east into this dialogue?

Intergenerational Fairness in Government Policy

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this has been an excellent debate, and the speech we have just heard is a very good example of the high quality and of different experiences being brought to bear in this House. It was very good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Willetts—The Pinch was the starting point for many of my thoughts on this subject, probably some years ago now. I too was surprised by the absence of Labour speakers. I am told that Labour is a party that cares a great deal about equality, and this is one of the underlying issues to do with equality and inequality in this country. I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, sat and listened at least to the opening speeches in view of his article in last week’s Daily Mail, in which he said that,

“the very idea of intergenerational inequality is bunk”;

indeed,

“it is one of the silliest political concepts ever conceived, and yet it has been taken up with manic enthusiasm by ... the Resolution Foundation”.

I worry about the Daily Mail, which has four pages today attacking universities and intellectuals. It is a newspaper which attacks immigrants all the time, attacked judges the other month, attacked a major international organisation, the OECD, last week and now attacks intellectuals this week. I wonder who it will go on to attack next and begin to wonder when the Conservative Government will have the courage to stand up to this hysterically reactionary newspaper and defend the concept of open debate and free speech.

The Social Mobility Commission talks about three overlapping problems of inequality in the United Kingdom: that between rich and poor, that between London and the poorest regions, and that between the old and the young. I was struck last week, on seeing a graph in the Economist on OECD figures for the gaps between the richest and the poorest regions in major countries, by how Britain stands out for the gap between London and the south-east and places such as Yorkshire and Lancashire. That is something we should also worry about, and it is why Members of this House such as me begin to go on more and more about the problems of the north and the imbalance in public spending between London and the south-east and the north.

Returning to the question of intergenerational inequality, I am glad that a number of noble Lords emphasised the extent to which growing longevity alters the nature of the equation. This House is, after all, a perfect example of that. When pensions were introduced in 1911, the average life expectancy was 57, and the pensionable age was 60. A welfare state of that sort was therefore easily affordable. When the National Health Service was introduced after the Second World War, life expectancy was a little higher—although not by too much—and there was not much you could do about people with a range of conditions for which many of us in this House have already been treated by the NHS. The situation has been changing and, as we have a higher and higher number of people in their 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and over the age of 100, the question of intergenerational inequality is a major one. My son is now a systems biologist working on various micro-organisms which cause serious diseases, and the speed at which work in that area is developing has huge implications for longevity and medical practice and for what can be done for the elderly in the last two or three years of their lives.

We need a sober, cross-party debate. All parties in government have struggled with this in the last 20 or 30 years. I suggest there might be a very strong case for a Lords sessional committee, for example, which would discuss this question in the broadest terms, because that is one of the ways this House can throw light on difficult issues that each party finds it hard to grasp. We need to ask how we promote longer-term perspectives in government and how we deal with issues where we have to address what we are leaving to our children and grandchildren.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer talks a great deal about the need to get our public debt down so that we do not leave the debt to our children, but he does not talk enough about what sort of investments we should make so that our children will have a better life, better infrastructure, better industries and so on to inherit. I find the selling off of capital assets in the public sector to fund current spending, to hold taxes down, amazing—it was one of the things in the coalition that I most disapproved of and tried to argue against—but it has, after all, been going on for the last 30 or 40 years. There is an underlying question here about whether taxes are too low in this country for the challenges we face, for old and young, in the next 15 to 20 years. There are the questions of taxing housing assets, which we do much less than most comparable countries; of the extension of the national insurance age, which the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, mentioned; and of the costs of social care, which the Conservatives themselves raised before the election and then backed out of during it. The cost of paying for the NHS, including end-of-life care, is huge. I think it is correct to say that half of what is spent on each person by the health service is spent in the last two years of any person’s life.

The Social Mobility Commission in particular stresses the importance of early years and education up to the age of 18. My perspective on this comes from having done most of my politics in northern towns and cities. I look at younger people there without much aspiration or much help, in relatively poor schools where the savage cuts in local authority spending have meant children’s social services are no longer provided, most schools do not have nurses, obesity is a problem because of the quality of the food they eat, and they do not understand how to move from school into work and have very little idea of what sort of skills they need for the sort of work they will face. Local further education colleges have had their budgets cut, so the transition to work and training for that half or more of our 18 year-olds who do not go to university is poorly provided for. I find deep cynicism in West Yorkshire about the new apprenticeship scheme and whether it really will focus on providing skills for young people or be used to provide transitional skills for those already in work.

These people—the left-behind as the noble Lord, Lord Bird, said—are also British citizens and we will leave to our children a much more deeply divided and much less peaceful society unless we address some of their problems. This is an intergenerational issue but also a deeply important social issue. We need better apprenticeships and more effort put into local economic and industrial regeneration. The point that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, made about banks that do not spend enough time thinking about investing in local regeneration is strongly felt there. Housing—both housing to buy and a revival of social housing—is crucial, and the prospect that the impact of technological change will make their situation worse, with insecure, unskilled work and zero-hours contracts, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, said, is also a serious problem. We have to debate this issue.

One of the reasons I have been converted to the idea that we should introduce votes at 16 is that, as the proportion of our voting population who are retired rises, so it would help to redress the balance if we also increased the number of young people.

The welfare state was introduced before the First World War partly because, as government began to recruit the working classes into the Armed Forces for national security purposes, it discovered that many in the working class were underfed, unfit and uneducated, and that they therefore needed to spend state money on people we would treat as our citizens. The welfare state now benefits increasingly the middle-class retired, who live 15 years longer than the working-class retired, who benefit a great deal from the National Health Service; and the poor—

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

Time.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I apologise. This is not a sustainable basis for a peaceful and united national community. It is an issue we must address.

Civil Society and the Democratic Process

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I agree with the noble Baroness that we need to have another look at the exemptions that Northern Ireland has from certain parts of electoral law, in particular on declaring sources of expenditure. We have a new First Secretary of State, and I am sure he will be interested in taking this matter forward in discussions through the usual channels.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the time may now have come to make sure that transparency of income for campaigning charities is extended? It is striking that there are a number of charities, some Muslim, that the Charity Commission has been concerned about, but right-wing bodies such as the Taxpayers’ Alliance and the Global Warming Policy Foundation do not declare their large donors. It would be useful, appropriate and an extension of democratic transparency if those rules were changed to ensure that donations were necessarily declared in their annual reports.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, who piloted the relevant legislation through this House in 2014. I mentioned a moment ago the House of Lords Select Committee on Charities report, Stronger Charities for a Stronger Society. Chapter 3 is on improving governance and accountability. The Government will look at the recommendations in that chapter, to which the noble Lord referred. In due course, we will respond to the Select Committee report. There has been a slight discontinuity because of the general election.

Boundary Reviews 2018

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, the country has already fought two general elections on out-of-date boundaries for reasons that are familiar to the noble Lord. If we followed the noble Lord’s suggestion and started again with a new register, there is a risk of a third general election on boundaries which were set in place in 2000. That would be an affront to democracy.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, fair and equal representation is clearly one of the principles. The principle of a single-member constituency also refers to the importance of place and community. Are we now abandoning that, as seems to have been done in the proposals which we are developing, and following the American system, where boundaries are drawn up entirely according to which party has the advantage in each state and without reference to local communities? Will we still try to hold on to the principle that representation should be based on towns, communities and counties?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

We are implementing proposals put on the statute book by the then leader of the noble Lord’s party, who was Deputy Prime Minister. He put on the statute book the legislation implementing the reviews which are currently being delivered.

General Election: Voting Rights

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My noble friend is quite right to draw the attention of the House to the progress that we have made in this Parliament by publishing the Ministerial Statement on 10 October. That Statement made it clear that our plan was to have the policy implemented before the next scheduled parliamentary election. Discussion is now taking place on how to register and who will be eligible to register. I hope that Ministers, if they are indeed returned after the next election, will be able to take this initiative forward.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Government will recall that in the referendum campaign a number of voters living abroad did not receive their postal vote in time to vote. There was much discontent over that. Can the Government make sure that on this occasion, those who wish to vote while living abroad and who are registered are provided with the opportunity to vote in good time?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, I understand that I said earlier that people could vote online; I should have said that they could register online. I am happy to put the record straight.

When people tried to register before the last referendum, there were times when the system could not cope. Since then, steps have been taken not only to increase the capacity of the system but to build in extra safeguards against any attempt at sabotage.

Electoral Fraud

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Without getting involved in Sheffield politics, it is certainly inappropriate for postal votes to be handled in that way. As I said in response to an earlier question, that practice is already discouraged in guidance from the Electoral Commission. There have been recommendations that it should be banned for precisely the reason that the noble Lord explained, and the Government are deciding how best to take that forward when legislative opportunities present themselves.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, could the Government ensure that the police take sufficiently seriously examples of electoral malpractice during elections, both local and the 2015 general election? In Bradford, there were a number of allegations during the last campaign across the parties about gatherings of young men outside polling stations and about party workers going into polling stations. The police did not follow these up as fully as perhaps they should have done. Can the Government make sure that the police are aware, for local as well as general elections, that these are serious offences?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord is quite right. This was one of the problems identified by Sir Eric Pickles in his review; he recommended that there should be a sort of cordon sanitaire around polling stations to prevent the intimidation to which the noble Lord refers. My understanding is that the Electoral Commission has taken that recommendation forward in guidance to stop intimidation in polling stations for the reason that the noble Lord has given.

Northern England: Opportunity and Productivity

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this is obviously a debate for praising the noble Lord, Lord Prescott; I thought he said it all. Brexit transfers power from Brussels to London. England is the most centralised area in the whole European Union. The devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has to some extent modified the centralisation of power within the UK, but the regions of England have continued to lose out. Cuts to local authority spending now are making that go further. It is a cultural imbalance as much as an economic one. I agree strongly with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds that people in London sometimes talk about Yorkshire as if it is part of Africa. When I first came into this House, I remember a Conservative Peeress saying to me, “I have just been to Yorkshire, and parts of it were quite nice”. The media, as we all know, are also heavily concentrated in north or east London and report things that happen in Islington or Tower Hamlets in ways they would never think of reporting if they happened in north Leeds or east Bradford. That is all part of the problem with which we have to deal.

It is therefore an increasing disadvantage that the north, as a whole, lacks an effective political voice within the UK system of government. Scotland has an effective voice on the Barnett formula, the geographical distribution of public funding, and in negotiating with London on the terms of international trade. Wales and Northern Ireland also have good institutionalised positions. But the north lacks anything comparable—certainly not comparable with London government itself. That matters in particular when we have a Conservative Government drawn largely from the Home Counties, with only a handful of Ministers who have any feel for, or sympathy for, the northern counties. Now that George Osborne and William Hague have gone, Greg Clark is the only one among the senior members of the Cabinet who appears to have sympathy and understanding for the industrial towns and cities that contributed so much to Britain’s prosperity over the past 200 years, but which have been left behind since the balance of Britain’s economy shifted, under Margaret Thatcher, from manufacturing to finance. There is a real danger that the north will be squeezed further between London and the devolved national governments as the Conservatives negotiate Brexit.

The State of the North report notes that the English regions, as a number of noble Lords have said, are significantly more dependent on trade with Europe than London itself. Yorkshire trades with the continent. Hull and the other Humber ports depend on handling trade with the continent. Two-thirds of Yorkshire’s food exports go to the European continent, eased by the rules of the single market and protected by the registration of regional denominations by the EU. Some of our producers are just beginning to wake up to the fear that they might lose that. The idea that food can be traded freely without international regulation is absurd. Food goes off, and dirty processes on food spread disease, so there has to be international regulation, and European regulation is some of the best. European regional funding flows into the economically weaker parts of Yorkshire, redistributing funds that a southern-dominated Conservative Government in London might be reluctant to redistribute to the north within a purely national framework.

Previous State of the North reports have detailed the low levels of investment in infrastructure in the north, in transport in particular, as noble Lords have said. I have been using the trains across the Pennines since I first taught in Manchester in 1967, and some of the rolling stock has not changed since then. The speed has hardly improved, either. The previous Labour Government, amazingly, neglected the north’s infrastructure, even cancelling tram networks in Liverpool and Leeds when plans were well advanced. It is not clear from recent announcements whether the east-west rail corridor from Oxford to Cambridge will now carry a higher priority for the Government than northern Crossrail, which is vital to realising the concept of a northern powerhouse.

The concept of a northern powerhouse, as the previous year’s report from IPPR North said, is itself difficult. The 2015 report said:

“The government has excelled in being largely unspecific as to what exactly the northern powerhouse is”.

That represents a lot of the cynicism in the north as to whether the northern powerhouse concept is merely rhetoric or is actually going to lead to money being redistributed. When George Osborne appeared with a number of Chinese investors alongside him, to suggest that perhaps the Chinese could pay for the northern powerhouse rather than the British taxpayer, our cynicism increased.

The north of England has been left behind by successive Governments. The rhetoric of a northern powerhouse was a welcome sign that things might change, but we have not seen the money yet. Canvassing for the referendum in June, I was painfully aware that in the former council estates of West Yorkshire, people planned to vote against London as much as against Brussels, and against politicians as much as against bankers. Head teachers tell me that school budgets are being squeezed. Two head teachers in Bradford told me that they fear they might go bankrupt in the next two or three years, as flat funding comes up against increasing salaries for their teachers.

Councillors tell me that local services are in danger of disappearing as cuts get deeper. Companies recruit directly from eastern Europe because, they say, they cannot find local workers with the skills or the motivation that they are looking for. Extra rounds of spending cuts and the likely downturn that will accompany a hard Brexit will worsen the situation across the north, so I strongly support the message of this IPPR document, which says that we need a more effective voice for the north to rebalance the British economy and rebalance the political system of the UK.

I stress the fiscal redistribution dimension of this because we have not talked much in British politics about the imbalance of funding for local authorities across the UK as a whole. The Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish now bargain with the Government about the balance of income and expenditure. The rest of us do not have a chance to do so. It is extremely important that we now begin to bring into the open the argument about how far rebalancing the economy allows us also to shift funds from the richer areas of the country to the north. The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, talked about a dependency culture, but in the estates of north Bradford, which I know that he knows well, the sense of hopelessness is partly because the local authority cannot do anything for you either. Children’s services, social services and so forth have been cut, so people do not see their local authority and they feel alienated from the entire political system.

Education is also a tremendous problem. I have seen figures that suggest that by the time children enter reception class at school in large parts of Bradford and Leeds they are already a long way behind their counterparts in London. I am conscious that FE colleges in the north are also being cut. As a Latvian cheerfully said to me when I canvassed him during the referendum, “The one good thing about Brexit will be that you will have to go on depending on people like me because you aren’t going to find people to build houses within Britain”. The supply is not there. There are not enough places. Building companies in Yorkshire, I was told some weeks ago, want to carry on recruiting directly from eastern Europe because they do not have the confidence to set up the sort of training schemes to train people who are less well motivated. In Bradford, the one training scheme that I am aware of was oversupplied in terms of applicants for its building apprenticeships by 100% or more.

I have one final comment. Depending entirely on FDI is not the answer for the region. We need local economic leadership, which means encouraging local entrepreneurs and local companies. Allowing those local companies as they grow to be taken over by foreign multinationals does not provide us with local incentives and local leadership—everything that we need. Banks, centralised in London as they are, also need to put money into the region. We need an institutionalised presence for the north in the process of Brexit, but we also need a stronger voice for the north in the British political system as a whole.