Devolved Governments: Public Expenditure

Lord Bird Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My noble and learned friend is right that we need to remind Scottish citizens that a great deal of the funding that goes into Scotland comes from here. We now have a Minister for the Union, Michael Gove, and his job is to keep reminding all the devolved Administrations that we are one union. A very senior civil servant, Sue Gray—of whom some of you may have heard—is the Permanent Secretary for the Union, and we are encouraging engagement at, for example, local authority level on a much more frequent basis.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

My Lords, we are talking about the spending of government money, and I congratulate the Government on the fact that, on 26 December 2021, although it did not get a lot of press, they decided to spend £360 million—for which I and others had been asking—on homeless prevention grants, so that people were not put out because they had lost their job due to Covid-19.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his support. Homelessness is one of society’s most complicated problems and we are very committed to trying to minimise it.