Lord Bilimoria
Main Page: Lord Bilimoria (Crossbench - Life peer)
The Earl of Courtown
My Lords, my noble friend makes some interesting points. He will be fully aware of how the labour market is responding to the policies of Her Majesty’s Government, with 3.8 million more in work, youth unemployment falling by 46% and over 1 million fewer workless households since 2010.
Lord Bilimoria (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister acknowledge that, although there has been a productivity challenge in this country, the top 10% of our companies are world class, with world-class productivity? The challenge is to invest more in education, R&D and innovation. What is the progress in the industrial strategy towards increasing R&D and innovation expenditure from around 1% of GDP to 2.8%, as in the United States and Germany, let alone Israel’s rate of 4%?
The Earl of Courtown
As noble Lords are aware, the whole point of the industrial strategy is to boost productivity and the earning power of people throughout the UK, as well as encouraging investment in the technologies of the future. The centrepiece of our approach is increased public investment in infrastructure and R&D through the national productivity investment fund. We have increased its total size to £37 billion, but the noble Lord makes a good point.