The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on securing this debate, and thank all noble Lords for their excellent contributions. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Wyre Forest, on his maiden speech, and for the apology he rightly made to Lady Brittan. He brings the benefit of his 18 years as an MP; ministerial experience; service to the Labour Party, which seems to include the happy marriage of the Kennedys, and the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union; and, of course, his enthusiasm for alternative rock music.
I was interested to see in the thoughtful article by the noble Lord, Lord Bird, in the Big Issue—which was sold to me on a snowy morning in Tisbury, Wiltshire by a lady who is always there, day in, day out—on the problems facing ex-prisoners and the importance of mentoring, on both of which I think I can make a contribution to today’s debate.
Before I respond on specifics, I would like to say that, especially in challenging times like the present, the Government face a constant struggle both to improve the economy and to make things more efficient. The initiatives that form part of our efficiency and savings review are devoted to allocating resources to the right areas—of course, the NHS and social care were prioritised on 17 November—and doing things better.
Ways of doing this include “right first time”, as mistakes are costly and draining. We want less waste. We need to use new technology better, do more outside London, and encourage public servants to be creative and come up with front-line ideas that help save money and help users. As has been said, we also need fewer miscarriages of common sense of the kind that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, described happening in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire, a part of the country I particularly love. I would be happy to follow up with the relevant colleagues across government and local government to look into this case, if he would be kind enough to supply further information to my private office after the debate. Life is hard but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, we need to minimise miscarriages of common sense.
This is very difficult, but we need to be ambitious and leave no stone unturned, so arm’s-length bodies are in scope, as well as the Civil Service. Personally, I would like to see regulators running on tighter budgets too. As everyone has said, it is a challenging time, but the Autumn Budget confirmed that departmental budgets would be maintained at least in line with those at the spending review 2021. That set UK government departments’ resource and capital budgets from 2022-23 to 2024-25. The Autumn Statement confirmed that these departmental budgets will be maintained at least in line with the budgets set at the spending review. Additional support was provided to help the most vulnerable, alongside measures to get debt and government borrowing down. To ensure that key public services continue to deliver, the Government prioritised further funding in the next two years to support the healthcare system, including the critical matter of social care, and schools. We have also recruited 32,000 more nurses compared to 2019, 4,000 more doctors than last year, and 15,000 more police officers since 2019.
The public rightly expect their Government to lead by example and to be run as efficiently as possible. That is why the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have asked departments to look for effective ways to maximise efficiency and value for money. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, I say that this includes looking at workforce efficiencies as appropriate, but the Prime Minister does not believe that overarching top-down targets are the right way to deliver efficiencies. As part of our commitment to levelling up, the Government also recommitted to a number of areas of capital spend that are crucial to economic growth and spreading opportunity, including the £20 billion R&D commitment, the levelling-up fund, Project Gigabit, HS2 and core Northern Powerhouse Rail, progressing Sizewell C, and the new hospital programme.
Maintaining budgets will of course require difficult decisions from departments. However, this is the responsible thing to do to avoid fuelling further inflation and ensure that the Government take a disciplined approach to public spending. We need to be ambitious as a Government in finding better ways of doing things and to focus spending where it delivers the greatest value for money for the taxpayer.
I pick up the point that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, made about the social costs of austerity and the knock-on effects of that, also highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, but this is not austerity. We face a very challenging time, but the OBR highlighted at the Autumn Statement that spending plans announced spending reductions much smaller than the overall spending consolidation that the coalition embarked on. Indeed, we have been criticised for some for this. Total departmental spending will be over £90 billion higher in real terms by 2027-28 than at the start of the Parliament. The Autumn Statement also announced significant uplifts in spending for key public services, including the NHS and schools, as I have said.
This is not about reducing budgets and there are no savings targets. I hope it will give some comfort to noble Lords to hear that all savings identified during the review will be reinvested within departments to help to manage pressures and protect the Government’s priorities, including vital public services and higher growth. However, we will be looking for opportunities in departments to reprioritise spending away from some of the lower-value and lower-priority programmes. Such opportunities include accelerating progress on innovation and automation, and further reducing waste and duplication.
To pick up a point made about online services, I should say that they can improve delivery of services; I know that from my experience at the DWP and elsewhere. However, as has been said, there are problems for those who cannot access the internet. That is why we are investing in the rollout of broadband, which is very important—it has taken longer than it should—and access through libraries and other such areas is also important. We need to match the wonders of the online world with making it easy for people, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged.
I will use one department as an example: HMRC is identifying a sustainable savings plan which would be worth over £200 million a year by 2024-25, and that is through systematic planning, tracking and delivery of efficiency savings. We also continue to make savings by reallocating roles from London, delivering the same public service for less by reducing the rent paid in London, and spreading opportunity across the country, as we have seen in the Darlington Economic Campus, which is a good example. The Government are also committed to working more efficiency by reducing waste through tackling fraud with the new Public Sector Fraud Authority, which is now up and running.
As I said, we need to reprioritise lower-value and low-priority programmes so as to get maximum value for money. The Evaluation Task Force, which I mentioned last week, is a joint Cabinet Office and HM Treasury unit which will improve the way in which government programmes are evaluated. We can feed those evaluation results to Ministers so that they inform policy and help them do a better job going forward. The Government also require that spending proposals be developed in line with the Green Book guidance on appraisal and evaluation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, had a long list of concerns about Defra—which, as she knows, is where I started my career. I hope she will take some comfort from what I said about the efficiency review. In most cases, department budgets are the same as last year and will be maintained, and that includes Defra’s budgets. The efficiency and savings review will support Defra to manage the inflationary and other pressures that it faces, ensuring that government works as efficiently as possible and focusing spend where it gives greatest value. I think she said that targets have not been announced but we have in fact now announced legally binding targets to protect our environment, clean up our rivers and boost nature, which I am sure she has welcomed. Finally, we share an enthusiasm for reusable nappies, so I will find out what has happened to her environment impact assessment.
It was a pleasure to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Rees of Ludlow, and I agree on what he said about the importance of resilience. We will be debating that subject in the new year with the report by the Risk Assessment and Risk Planning Committee. I do not personally agree with what the noble Lord said about taxes but in any event, luckily that is a matter for the Chancellor.
If I may, I will write to the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, on well-being and equality assessments.
The policy we are discussing today fits well into other policies, especially but not exclusively economic policy. The overarching aim of the efficiency and savings review is to ensure that we can keep spending focused on the Government’s top priorities and manage pressures from high inflation, using creative ideas such as described by my noble friend, Lord Greenhalgh—I will take away his ABC and three Rs and see whether they could be helpful elsewhere. We need departments to accelerate efforts to tackle waste and work more efficiently and creatively, focusing spending where it delivers the greatest value for the taxpayer. As I said right at the beginning, if we get things right first time, that can be helpful and make a difference.
All the savings identified during the review—it is, I repeat, part of our creative and constructive approach—will be reinvested in departments and in protecting our priorities; these include vital public services and higher growth programmes, which give us more cake in due course. The Government will report on the review’s progress in the spring but, in the meantime, I wish noble Lords a welcome break and a very merry Christmas. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, for giving us an opportunity to debate these matters today.