Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

I certainly do not want to get into any partisan repartee across the Dispatch Box on a matter that ought to command considerable cross-party agreement and support. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the remarks he has made on the record in the past about supporting the principle of regulating lobbying. I should, however, point out that his party was in government for a very long period during the whole of which issues were raised about this subject and at no time did that Government issue a paper or consult on it, or move towards serious regulation of it. If he feels that this should have been done immediately, the question arises of why it was not done from 1997 onwards. To help him, the answer is, of course, that it is an extremely complicated and difficult subject, which is why the Select Committee and respondents to the consultation had many things to say. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will, on mature reflection, agree that we should consider this in an unpartisan spirit and try to get it right.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

2. How much money was saved as a result of his Department’s cross-Whitehall spending controls in 2012.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

To deal with the enormous budget deficit that the coalition Government inherited from the Labour party opposite, in the days after the general election in May 2010 we introduced tough new spending controls. In the year to March 2012, those controls helped to save the taxpayer no less than £5.5 billion, on top of the £3.75 billion that we saved the year before.

[John Howell]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on those figures and ask him whether he agrees that this shows just how wasteful spending was under the previous Government.

[Mr Maude]

I am afraid that that is the case. It was open to the Leader of the Opposition, when he sat in my position in the Cabinet Office, to introduce the same kind of controls, but it is very unglamorous hard work; one needs to get into the detail. It is a pity that he did not do it; if he had done, we would not be in quite the fiscal mess that the coalition Government inherited two years ago.