Short Money
Justin Madders Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
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John Penrose
Given the level of transparency that is already rightly expected of the Government when employing Spads, for example, it is reasonable to ask for an equivalent level of transparency with regard to how Short money is spent on people such as Damian McBride, who I understand has just rejoined the Labour party’s payroll, and Seumas Milne.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Minister talks a lot about savings to the taxpayer, but can he confirm that any savings that will be made by these proposals will in fact be dwarfed by the extra cost to the public purse as a result of the Prime Minister’s prolific rate of appointments to the other place?
John Penrose
Actually, the cost of the House of Lords, I am told, is falling even while its numbers are rising, and so the cost to the public purse will be reduced as a result of the changes that are happening at the other end of the building.
On the hon. Gentleman’s broader point about whether saving this amount of money is worth while, I would say, at the risk of angering my colleagues from Scotland, that mony a mickle maks a muckle. It matters what we save and it matters that we pay attention to every single detail, given the scale of the deficit that we inherited from the previous Labour Government.