Henry Smith
Main Page: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)Department Debates - View all Henry Smith's debates with the Cabinet Office
(11 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Order. There is still far too much noise in the Chamber. I understand the general excitement, which I am sure is in anticipation of the question from Mr Henry Smith.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
T3. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the £10 billion- worth of efficiency savings that his Department has made on behalf of the taxpayer in the past year. What ambition does he have for the coming year?
Mr Maude
We hope that those savings will rise to £15 billion in the current year, and potentially to £20 billion the following year, with a further £5 billion, at least, after that. If only the Leader of the Opposition had started to do this when he held my job, perhaps we would not have inherited quite the size of public sector deficit that we did, but I am afraid that he was showing weak leadership even then.