Lord Blunkett
Main Page: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Blunkett's debates with the HM Treasury
(1 year, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy noble friend is right: we must ensure that when we undertake these exercises, we really are delivering efficiency and value for money gains, rather than short-term fixes for departments’ budgets that, in the long term, may create other problems. I can reassure him that no figure is attached to the current exercise; it is about working with departments to see where they can find efficiency savings to help them manage the pressures they are under.
My Lords, does the noble Baroness not agree that what she has just said underlines the total failure of the short-term and damaging fixing over the last 12 and a half years?
No, I would not agree with the noble Lord at all. Efficiency savings are something that Governments of all colours have striven to deliver, including in previous comprehensive spending reviews under the Labour Government. It is absolutely right that, when we look at departmental spending, we build in an assumption of improved efficiency and value for money, but also that, at this time of increased inflationary pressures, we put even more work into looking at where we can achieve efficiencies and release savings to be reinvested into those budgets.