Capital Projects: Spending

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

I am not an expert and I am not the Minister for the department, but I will do my best to explain to the noble Baroness. The reprofiling is where the project has been delayed and therefore the money moves on to the next budget cycle. There are certain areas where it is not appropriate for it to be moved on to the next budget cycle. One of those is the Help to Buy scheme, which was coming to an end, and so any underspend was because it was coming to its termination; therefore it was not suitable for that to be reprofiled into the next budget cycle.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, the Government have been very positive in response to my request that devolved authorities should not spend in reserved areas. Equally, the UK Government should not spend in devolved areas, and yet they are now doing this. Could the UK Government rethink this and make sure they spend only in reserved areas, and that the Scottish and Welsh Governments spend their money in the areas for which they have responsibility?

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

We have had many questions on why there is not a joined-up strategy for the UK on these policies. I refer to some of the discussions we had yesterday on LURB, where we were talking about how good the working relationship is with the Scottish and Welsh Governments respectively.