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🗣️ Speeches and Debates
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My Lords, I am most grateful to everyone who spoke in this excellent debate. The noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, got us off to a good start on the economics, which is, of course, a central part of this—but economics can appear to look just at the whole economy rather than at the fates of individuals. Ultimately, of course, the economy is about the fates of individuals and especially the fates...
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My Lords, this amendment aims to remedy one of the greatest injustices in our whole education system: the acute shortage of apprenticeships for young people not going to university. If you qualify for university and want it, you can expect to find a place. However, if you qualify for an apprenticeship and want it, you have no such luck. On the Government’s matching scheme for...
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My Lords, children’s well-being is referenced in the title of this Bill, and so it should be. Obviously, children’s well-being matters, but it is also the best predictor of how happy the child will be in their subsequent life, predicting it far better than the qualifications which they obtain. However, the only outcome of education which we measure is those qualifications—and, of...
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My Lords, there have been two main criticisms of the Bill. The first is that it expands the size of the state and is therefore bad, and the second is that it destroys jobs. Both arguments are misconceived. I will take them in turn. As we all know, the share of taxes in GDP has increased enormously in recent years, and this Budget will set a record high. If you say that in a certain tone of...
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My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Beamish. I warmly welcome this Bill for two reasons. The first is economic growth. That is obvious, but equally importantly—I want to stress this perspective—skills are crucial for people and their individual ability to earn a living. For those two reasons, it is highly desirable that we have a well-focused system of skills development led by...
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My Lords, how wonderful that we have two such excellent new Ministers. We are talking about growth, and growth depends on only two things: productivity and employment. Higher productivity depends hugely, of course, on higher skills. Higher skills are not only more productive in themselves, but they also raise the return to physical capital and therefore they then induce more investment. But...
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My Lords, I am delighted to follow our chairman, who does such a wonderful job in leading our work. This report is timely because everybody wants to see more economic growth. The most obvious way to achieve that is to increase employment. The central issue is how we can raise employment in the most cost-effective way. As our chairman hinted at, the most obvious way is to help the long-term...
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My Lords, we all know the problem facing our country: as a nation, we have become poorer. Our import prices have risen more than our export prices and, on that account, we are 5% poorer than we were a year or so ago. That is a lot of money—over £100 billion a year—and it is something we cannot escape. This is the issue that the Chancellor is facing: who should bear the cost of the loss...
More of Lord Layard's speeches and debates
✍️ Written Questions and Answers
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asked Her Majesty's Government: What progress has been made on implementing the recommendations contained in the Government's report on the historic environment: A Force for Our Future.
More of Lord Layard's written questions
