‘The Lords’ pronounce on Productivity!
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Conservative):
- What plans does HMG have for increasing productivity in the UK economy.
- I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her Question.
- To answer her first point, she is incorrect to say that we did not impose any productivity criteria.
- We have introduced a 2% efficiency and productivity target (not 20%) in the NHS for this year and next year.
- We have also gone further than the previous Government did by extending that target to all government departments to ensure that we are improving the quality of public services while also improving value for money.
- The noble Baroness mentioned planning.
- A significant programme of planning reform was announced by the Chancellor on her very first day in the Treasury.
- The previous Government had 14 years to announce those things but never did anything.
- My Lords, as a former small businessman, I welcome the Government’s recent announcements to help small businesses, including increasing the threshold for national insurance contributions from £5,000 to £10,500, and cutting business rates for shops, pubs and other leisure properties.
- Are there any more goodies to come in the future from this new Labour Government for small businessmen?
- I am grateful to my noble friend for his support for the policies we have announced for small businesses.
- He is absolutely right that we protected small businesses in the recent Budget. SMEs are, of course, an essential part of a growing economy.
- We set out clear plans for small businesses in our manifesto and we will deliver on those in the coming months.
- My Lords, the Minister was right to mention skills being central to bringing productivity up.
- Both our parties had large chapters on skills in our manifestos and, since coming into office, the Government have announced initiatives, consultations and suchlike.
- Will the Minister tell your Lordships’ House when the first cadre of employees who have benefited from any of the skills measures that the Government intend to bring in will reach the workplace?
- The noble Lord is correct to say that both parties are absolutely aligned on the importance of skills reform, which is why we have announced Skills England.
- We will be increasing the number of people in training and they will enter the workforce as soon as they graduate.
- Does my noble friend accept that there are some really perverse outcomes in the current way we assess productivity in the public sector, such as smaller class sizes worsening productivity in the education system, or employing more police officers so crime drops and the ratio therefore worsens
- Is it not really important that we get a bit of common sense into this?
- I completely agree with my noble friend on that point.
- Measuring public sector productivity is very difficult and contradictory measures are involved.
- My Lords, in the 1970s, we attracted enormous increases in productivity by also attracting vast quantities of Japanese inward investment, which saved our motor industry.
- Now, unfortunately, our motor industry needs saving again.
- Could we concentrate on attracting FDI by having the kind of Budget that really makes international investors keen to invest here on a scale much larger than anything that has come before?
- My Lords, productivity is now often spoken of in relation to the National Health Service.
- The Health Foundation looked at NHS productivity and identified maintaining morale and motivating the workforce as key to it.
- Alongside essential things such as targets, what effort are the Government making to continue softer leadership, including listening to the workforce and fostering good industrial relations?
- The right reverend Prelate is absolutely correct in what she says about the importance of the health service to productivity.
- A healthier workforce is a more productive workforce.
- We have a 10-year NHS health plan in the works.
- It will be published in the spring and will focus on delivering the reforms needed to ensure better value for money for taxpayers and sustainable productivity gains.
- Of course, good working relations with the workforce are essential to that.
- My Lords, big business in the United Kingdom is among the most productive in the world.
- It is small businesses which as the Minister said are the backbone of our economy, that struggle to grow productivity.
- How will the Government even communicate with this sector — most of the conversation is about only tax issues—to encourage and support innovation?
- How will they change financial services, so that businesses that wish to innovate can realistically access finance?
- That is a very good question, which I am not sure I know the answer to.
- Does the Minister agree that one way of increasing productivity is by reducing headcount and costs?
- Could we in this Chamber perhaps give a lead to the country by looking at what we are doing and seeing whether, in six months, we could reduce our headcount by getting rid of those people who come along and claim their expenses but do no work?
- My noble friend makes a very interesting point.
Did we hear “Hear Hear”?
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