Cross-Government Cost Cutting

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure the Home Office takes that into account. This Government have a strong record on protecting women who have had to flee violence; we brought forward the Domestic Abuse Act, among other things. Even when looking back to previous years, from 2010 onwards those budgets were protected.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, would my noble friend look closely at the property portfolio? As of January this year, only 34% of government office property had been onboarded, as it is apparently called. There is obviously scope to add more to this. Will my noble friend look closely at NHS properties in particular? For example, in a city such as York, with all the different organisations that have owned various properties, I would be interested to know how many are occupied and used for NHS purposes at this time.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I reassure my noble friend that the Government continue their efforts to reduce the government estate, and progress is being made to hit the £500 million per annum asset disposal target. There are significant property sales under way, including the empty sites and outdated buildings around the Royal London Hospital, which will create a new home for life sciences in London: the Whitechapel Road life sciences cluster.