Cross-Government Cost Cutting Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Cross-Government Cost Cutting

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts
Tuesday 6th December 2022

(1 year, 5 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Portrait Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
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My Lords, one of the best examples of cross-government working is the vaccine task force headed by Dame Kate Bingham. The noble Baroness will know that Dame Kate very heavily criticised the Government last week for dismantling our vaccines capability and stopping all the initiatives she had put in train. Is that an example of cross-government cost-cutting?

Baroness Penn Portrait Baroness Penn (Con)
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The noble Lord will know that we have increased the budgets in the health service, but that does not reduce the need to look for efficiencies. I pay tribute to the work of Dame Kate Bingham in delivering the results from the vaccine task force. We are now living in a different world from the one in which she did her work. I am sure we will look to learn the lessons from her work and take it forward in the most appropriate way.