Report (3rd Day)

Part of Growth and Infrastructure Bill – in the House of Lords at 5:00 pm on 20 March 2013.

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Photo of Lord O'Donnell Lord O'Donnell Crossbench 5:00, 20 March 2013

My Lords, I support the amendment. On this Budget day, it behoves us all to think about how we stimulate growth. This particular clause would actually be very harmful to growth; I agree in particular with what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and others said.

When I was in the Civil Service, the Government set up the Red Tape Challenge initiative. That was really important, and there is a second round of that in the Budget today. It is hugely important that we tackle the issues that are holding businesses back, but I am not sure that this proposal emerged from the Red Tape Challenge or that businesses came forward with it.

How does the proposal fit with the Government's policy of pushing mutuals, which I strongly support? There is a technical point as well: what we economists call adverse selection. If an employer is offering this, they are probably the kind of employer that you do not want to go near. If an employee accepts it, it is probably because they do not really understand what they are doing. On those grounds, it is bad.

I also take the point of the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Morris, about the moral case. I expected to hear the biblical reference: we know that in the old days the price of slavery was 20 or 30 pieces of silver. Is it now £2,000?