Duncan Hames
Main Page: Duncan Hames (Liberal Democrat - Chippenham)
Danny Alexander
I will say two things to the hon. Gentleman. First, his point about PFI is not within the scope of this statement. However, in the context of the spending review, we will have to look at every single way in which public money is spent—including the operation of PFI—to ensure that we are getting value for money and not spending taxpayers’ money unnecessarily when the spending settlement is going to be so tight.
The hon. Gentleman will see, when he reads the statement in the Library, that the search-and-rescue helicopter replacement is one of projects whose cost-effectiveness will be reviewed by the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Transport. Obviously, they will produce their report as and when that process has been completed.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
In the light of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s statement and of the fact that this will be a fixed-term Parliament, will he introduce constraints to prevent a similar spending spree in the run-up to the next general election?
Danny Alexander
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question, and I understand the motivation behind it. Given the scale of the challenge that we face in the form of the enormous structural deficit and the need to bring down that deficit further and faster than the previous Government proposed, I suspect that that task will consume all our time in the Treasury over the next five years, without having to worry about the question that he has raised.