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Queen’s Speech

My Lords, such decisions would be faced by any Government in current financial circumstances. My point relates to the resources and capabilities that we need in order to sustain growth. Building and sustaining growth in our economy will be the only way, in the medium and long term, to reduce our deficit and pay off the debt that we have inevitably taken on during the recession. Our low-carbon infrastructure, our universities, our adult skills systems, our research and science base and our capacity for high-tech innovation and company building are all vital keys to our future success. Over the past six months, the Government have announced major initiatives in every one of these areas: reshaping the skills system to create a new technician class; launching the UK Innovation Investment Fund and the Rowlands review to help to fill the structural finance gap for companies; creating a new framework for strengthening our world-class university system; and setting out plans for major rail electrification and nuclear and renewable energy generation. We have already committed more than £700 million through the Strategic Investment Fund set up in this year’s Budget to strengthen Britain’s capacities in key technologies and sectors such as industrial biotech, low-carbon cars and plastic electronics. The Digital Economy Bill will deliver a critical further piece of this jigsaw. In the Digital Britain White Paper, we set out plans to create the legal frameworks and digital infrastructure in Britain that a knowledge economy will require and demand. These will be essential not just for our exceptional creative industries but for every industry that relies on digital communications. We are making important changes to our radio licensing regime and opening up the field for next-generation mobile broadband services through spectrum modernisation. We are bringing forward new measures to enable British businesses to build new commercial models that reflect the way in which we access and use content online without being undermined by online piracy. We will also secure the future of public service broadcasting content in a rapidly changing world through a commitment to diverse sources of news with the creation of new regional and local news providers. One of the key strengths of the UK through this recession has been the flexibility of our workforce and our labour market. The model that we have pioneered over the past decade—the so-called Anglo-social model—has proved that it is possible to protect people at work without damaging the underlying strength of the labour market and without backing away from our duty to equip people to cope in times of economic change. We will enact legislation that will put us in a position to implement the agency workers directive. This will enable us to ensure greater fairness for the 1.3 million agency workers employed across the UK. We will do so in line with the agreement reached between the CBI and the TUC that, following 12 weeks in a given job, an agency worker will be entitled to equal basic working and employment conditions as though they had been recruited directly to occupy the same job. Getting this acceptable agreement required positive engagement in Europe—something that this Government are committed to continuing but something that would be directly threatened by the Conservative Party’s pledge to try to repatriate such social and employment legislation from Europe. We are a year and a few months on from the Lehman collapse. The consequences of that extraordinary week and the events that led up to it can still be seen everywhere. However, the freefall in the economy has been stalled, thanks in large part to the banking recapitalisation and stimulus pioneered by the Government. Our measures have blunted the impact of the recession, which is a considerable achievement when we recall, as I have said, the consequences of the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s. We have also had to mobilise huge resources to help those who lost their jobs and who need to retrain, to provide alternative sources of credit for small businesses and to extend lifelines such as the car scrappage scheme. After a difficult year of retrenchment, rising business confidence suggests that we have moved from fighting crisis to building recovery. Indeed, confidence even seems to be spreading to the Benches opposite. I note that the other day the shadow Business Secretary was commending my department for producing such workable policies. He even suggested that he would try to match them. On this, as on so many other points, I am grateful for his support. These Bills are about prospering in the global economy on the other side of the recovery. They are about fighting for our future prosperity as boldly as this country has fought off the recession. I commend these measures to the House.