Social Mobility: Treasury Reform

Debate between Jesse Norman and Lyn Brown

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jesse Norman]

It certainly has been; if the hon. Lady looks at the record, she can see that. I also pointed out that Scottish schools had performed worse than ever before in the PISA rankings in 2016. She can check that; it is an objective fact, not a matter for debate. She is entitled to her views, but not to the facts.

The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for East Ham—I apologise, I mean the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown); I am sure many footballers will not thank me for that. The hon. Lady mentioned table tennis tables; having been a director of the Roundhouse in London for many years, I know the value of local social involvement and engagement. I agree with it, and the Government have invested significantly in it. She seems to have forgotten that the Government will have spent almost £6 billion in 2019-20 on childcare, which is a record amount. They have doubled the amount of free childcare available for working parents of three and four-year-olds to 30 hours. The Government have a tremendous record in this area in many ways. I am glad she mentioned table tennis tables; I was playing at a free table tennis table, provided through public funding, only last weekend, in the village of Little Dewchurch in my constituency.

[Lyn Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jesse Norman]

I am sorry; I have no time. If the hon. Lady had spoken for less time, I would have had more time to respond.

I will respond to the question raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney. It is a very interesting attack, not just on the Treasury but on the model of Government that we have in this country. It deserves to be taken with the utmost seriousness. The point has often been made before, although not quite in the same terms. Historically, there is a tension in British Government between the Treasury as a finance ministry and the Treasury as an economics ministry; that is well understood.

My right hon. Friend’s concerns about short-termism in public policy making are also criticisms that have often been made. The extent to which this Government, their immediate predecessor and the one before that, have taken steps to attempt to ameliorate and address some of these issues is interesting. For example, we now have multi-year funding strategies for road and rail infrastructure, which we did not have before; there is a separate independent economics ministry, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which is specifically designed to provide an economic counterpart to the Treasury; and, other steps have been taken to try to combat embedded institutional concerns about short-termism in public funding. Undoubtedly, there is more to do. The criticisms have weight, as has been shown by the responses that the Government have made; it is a point that the Government have well taken and are making significant progress.

There is an embedded tension between the desire for longevity in funding and the desire for democracy. If we lived in China, we would operate according to a 100-year economic plan; we cannot do that because this country has always been bound by the principle that no Government can bind their successors. It is right that we should try to build more longevity into public policy; I have touched on some of the ways in which that can be done, but I have no doubt there are many areas in which it can be done better. This embedded tension between cash constraints, managing the public exchequer, the democratic accountability of Ministers and long-term funding is one that will not be removed by abolishing the Treasury.

My right hon. Friend said that no company would ever see a contradiction between the chief executive and the financial director; I think she is mistaken. There are many companies in which the chief executive would like to spend money and the finance director, in league with the chair, prevents him from doing so. There have been many points in British government when that has been true. It is often true in a Labour Government, when the wisdom of having an independent Treasury, with a degree of control over public finances, stops a Labour Government from thoroughly spendthrift public spending policies. I close by saying that I encourage my right hon. Friend to be careful what she wishes for.