Autumn Forecast

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The short answer to my hon. Friend is yes. One of the specific aspects that we want to look at is how Government should be helping businesses grow, rather than standing in the way of that. That includes procurement for Government. The Government spend too much of their money on the largest companies in the country and not enough on some of the smaller companies. That is one of the things that we seek to improve.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

On public sector jobs, the Chancellor says that headcount reduction will happen over four years, but as he knows, some local authorities are facing budget reductions of 20 or 30% next year alone, due to front loading and loss of specific grant. Will he consider rephasing the cuts to local government so that we do not see 140,000 local government job losses next year?

[Mr Osborne]

I said at the time that it was a challenging settlement. I have removed some of the ring-fencing—indeed, almost all the ring-fencing—to allow local authorities the maximum flexibility to deal with that, but unfortunately I inherited a situation where the country was borrowing £1 in every £4 that it was spending. At a time when people are looking at European countries, we can see what happens to European countries that have high budget deficits and no credible plan to deal with them, so I have had to take those decisions. As I say, if the Labour party wants to put forward a plan to remove the structural deficit without affecting the local government settlement, let us hear it.