Lord Razzall (LD):...The Government’s big idea, I suppose, is the
industrial strategy. It is a big idea of interventionist sector
deals, which Tories traditionally baulk at—but, in this case, they
are wilfully imprecise. Maybe the free market needs a strategic
nudge from the Government, but a deliberate lack of detail in a
chosen four industries— life sciences,
construction, Artificial Intelligence and automotive—is
worrying, and the arrangements with Nissan are, of course,...Request free trial
(LD):...The
Government’s big idea, I suppose, is the industrial strategy. It is
a big idea of interventionist sector deals, which Tories
traditionally baulk at—but, in this case, they are wilfully
imprecise. Maybe the free market needs a strategic nudge from the
Government, but a deliberate lack of detail in a chosen four
industries— life sciences, construction, Artificial Intelligence and automotive—is
worrying, and the arrangements with Nissan are, of course, still
top secret. Nevertheless, we have to praise the industrial
strategy. After all, its grandfather was the noble Lord, Lord
, its father was and its child is Mr Clark, so we
cannot object to it across the Floor, but the proof obviously will
be in the results...
(Lab):...I agree
with other noble Lords that the key to these more drastic measures
must lie in the industrial strategy. If we take it seriously, if it
becomes our priority, if it embraces society as a whole and not
just the economy and if we reorganise all of government to carry it
through and not just simply have the industrial strategy as part of
a government department, we will have a chance of success, this
time, because the other nine industrial strategies I remember have
mainly failed. It has to involve everybody and teach skills to
young and old. The digital monopolies and platforms that we depend
on have to be properly regulated to allow for competition, as the
noble Lord, , told us. It must deal with
the tax loopholes which have only recently been revealed, not only
overseas but here, as others have said. We have to be more serious
about this. Certainly the strategy has to harness digitalisation
and Artificial Intelligence, but driving all
of this has to be part of the work of the proposed industrial
strategy council. I hope that it will be a council equivalent to
the Office for Budget Responsibility, that it will monitor and
report sector by sector on what they need to do to be competitive
and successful and perhaps push some of the improvements that the
noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, spoke about earlier. Why not
have a branding campaign to go with all this, just to show that we
are addressing it?
(LD):...I return to
the industrial strategy. There is a huge focus on innovation and
new sectors, and that is absolutely necessary. However, there are
two points here. First, the noble Lords, , and , pointed out that it was a very
narrow perspective on innovation and that there are much broader
issues around the fourth industrial revolution—Artificial Intelligence and the gig
economy, and the impact that all of that will have. The Budget did
not begin to tackle those kinds of complexities. Secondly—no one
has mentioned this particularly, and that surprises me somewhat—I
noticed that there was pretty much nothing for the small, steady
businesses that are absolutely the backbone of our economy. That is
where productivity is at its lowest and where, if the Government do
not focus, make changes and invest in bringing in the capability to
introduce innovation at that level, we will never get the change
that we need in productivity and the growth rate that we need for
our economy...
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