Spending Review

Lord Higgins Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deighton]

My Lords, I am working on the assumption that we have fulfilled those, but I am sure somebody will tell me very quickly if we have not. It is not a stipulation I am familiar with.

[Lord Higgins]

My Lords, when the coalition was formed, I stressed that it would be far more difficult to reduce the deficit than was generally supposed. Having been involved in spending cuts in previous Governments, I would certainly not underestimate the task facing the Chancellor. None the less, there is a danger that we are underestimating what still needs to be done. The Government keep repeating the mantra, “Oh well, we have reduced the deficit by a third”. Actually, this means that we are borrowing more at two-thirds of the rate that we inherited from the previous Government.

We are still living way beyond our means, in part because we are paying for Gordon Brown’s proposals, for which there was no money then and for which no money is available now, except by borrowing. Does my noble friend agree that we really have to press on with much more determination in tackling this whole issue and that it would be wrong to say that we are all right just because we reduced the deficit by a certain amount?

[Lord Deighton]

I agree with my noble friend that managing the public finances responsibly will be a continuing exercise of considerable discipline. On managing current spending, we have introduced the welfare cap on the overall budget as well as the cap on specific benefits that we saw in the previous Budget. Departmental budgets are being managed with discipline. There has also been a real focus on switching from current expenditure to capital expenditure, which should support the enhancement of the productive capacity of the economy and thus help us with tax revenues. Those components should continue to be an urgent and aggressive focus of the Government’s fiscal management.