Spending Round 2019

Lord Duncan of Springbank Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Lords Chamber

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[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

That this House takes note of the Spending Round 2019.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Northern Ireland Office (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to begin by paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Young, who as ever is in his place; I would much rather that he was in my place, but here we are. He has an extraordinary record of five decades of service—a parliamentary career that is almost unrivalled in recent history—an extraordinary achievement. I can assure the noble Lord that I would welcome him back with open arms. I would also like to thank my colleagues, the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, and the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, for helping with this particular brief. It has its own challenges.

I want to say also that, thanks to the decisions that the coalition and Conservative Governments have taken since 2010 and the hard work of the British people, we can now afford to turn the page on austerity and move forward from a decade of recovery to a decade of renewal. This spending round does that by delivering on the people’s priorities across the NHS, education and police, giving certainty to all departments—and I emphasise all departments—about their budgets for the coming year, and clearing the decks for government to focus on delivering Brexit.

Next year, the Government will add £13.4 billion to the plans for total public spending, including £1.7 billion added to capital spending. Those extra funds take the real increase in day-to-day spending to £13.8 billion, or 4.1%. That means that we are delivering the fastest increase in day-to-day spending for 15 years. Importantly, we will do so while continuing to meet our existing fiscal rules. That additional funding will ensure we build the Britain of tomorrow: a safer Britain; a healthier Britain; a better-educated Britain; and a more global Britain.

In terms of safer Britain, we are reducing crime. That must be one of the Government’s top priorities. At this spending round, the Government announced a 6.3% real-terms increase in Home Office spending, the biggest in 15 years. That will mean £750 million to fund the first year of our plan to recruit 20,000 new police officers. We will start recruiting immediately, with an extra £45 million this year so that that recruitment can start at once. Further, the Government will carry out a formal review into how we handle serious and organised crime, ahead of the full spending review next year. We will provide additional funding to tackle online child sexual exploitation. We will double the places of worship fund to ensure greater protection for synagogues, mosques and other religious buildings. We announced more investment in our criminal justice system to address increased demand, with a 5% real-terms increase in the resource budget for the Ministry of Justice, an increase in their capital budget to £620 million next year and an extra £80 million for the Crown Prosecution Service.

In terms of creating a healthier Britain, this spending round provides further support for our NHS. Last year, we increased NHS spending by an extra £34 billion a year by 2023-24. In this spending round, we affirm our commitment to the NHS with a £6.2 billion increase in NHS funding for the next year. We are investing more in training and professional development for our doctors and nurses, with over £2 billion of new capital funding—starting with an upgrade to 20 hospitals this year and £250 million for ground-breaking new artificial intelligence technologies to help solve some of healthcare’s toughest challenges. In addition, councils will have access to new funds of £1.5 billion for social care from next year. Councils will also see the largest increase in local government spending power since 2010 and on top of the existing £2.5 billion of social care grants already announced.

On ensuring that we have a better-educated Britain, alongside providing for the health of our people, the next most important task of government is to educate the next generation. That is why we are delivering on our pledge to increase school spending. By the financial year 2022-23, we will have increased funding by £7.1 billion in cash terms compared to this year. Next year, we will make sure that day-to-day funding for every school can rise at least in line with inflation, with the schools that have been historically underfunded benefiting the most. That funding will mean that teachers’ starting salaries can rise to £30,000 per year by 2022-23, to ensure that we can attract more of the best graduates to the teaching profession. We will provide over £700 million more to support children and young people with special educational needs next year—an 11% increase compared to this year. This spending round also provides a £400 million increase in 16 to 19 year-old education funding next year, and the Government will increase early years spending by £66 million.

Turning to other departments, this spending round took bold action right across government. We have made available an additional £2.2 billion of funding for the Ministry of Defence, a real-terms increase of 2.6% for their budget from next year. We have increased our support for the Diplomatic Service, with £90 million of funding for 1,000 diplomats and overseas staff, and 14 new and upgraded diplomatic posts. We have ensured that we continue to protect our environment, with new funding to tackle the crisis in air quality. We are increasing our funding for biodiversity and to help develop new programmes to help meet our net zero commitment by 2050. We have also provided more than £200 million to transform bus services around the country.

Let me stress that every government department has had its budget for day-to-day spending increased at least in line with inflation for the first time since the spending review of 2002. As for the wider infrastructure and fiscal framework, we will build on the announcements we made in the spending round at the Budget before my right honourable friend the Chancellor will review our fiscal framework to ensure it meets the economic priorities of today, not the priorities of a decade ago. Central to the Government’s new economic plan will be rebuilding our national infrastructure to ensure that we invest in the long-term growth of this country. We will bring forward detailed plans at the Budget later this year alongside an ambitious strategy for new investment.

On that basis, I hope we can open what will be an interesting debate and perhaps a pleasant sorbet before the courses that are yet to come.