Spending Review 2025

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

If I may say so, the rising wedge, as the noble Lord describes it, is his analysis. It clearly is not analysis shared by the Government. I do not know whether it is based on any economic theory. It may be, but it is clearly not one that the Government share, because they are the numbers that the Government have set out.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the most welcome aspects of the spending review is the terrific increase in science and technology spending, which will drive innovation across the country. It is long overdue, especially as it is now linked to Horizon, with an explicit reference to the building of new partnerships and new skills. I hope we can attract some of those American scientists who are now rather destabilised, shall we say, by the Trump Administration.

My question is about how housing fits into the growth agenda—it clearly does. One of the most explicit elements is the new towns programme, which is lined up not just to fill housing need but to drive housing growth and economic growth linked to infrastructure in different parts of the country where we need that growth. Can the Minister just tell me how that fits into the £39 billion now made available for affordable and social housing?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend—both where she started and indeed where she ended. I completely agree about the importance of innovation and the spending that we have been able to do in this spending review. As I have said before, the industrial strategy will be published in the coming weeks. Clearly, innovation and R&D are vital to those high-growth sectors. She also talked about the importance of partnership, and that sits at the heart of the industrial strategy—a partnership between government and business, helping to systematically remove the barriers to growth. As my noble friend will know, we have increased public funding on R&D to a record high of £22.6 billion in the spending review.

My noble friend talked about housing and its link to growth. I completely agree that, for too long, people have not been able to live anywhere near the jobs that they want to do because they have not been able to afford the housing to be close to those jobs. That is absolutely not good for growth. I am certain that the £39 billion we are investing will help us to begin to tackle that.