Cross-Government Cost Cutting

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I always welcome helpful advice. However, I am not sure that I can take it up in this case.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, even though markets have stabilised somewhat in recent weeks, our borrowing costs are extraordinarily high. Debt payments are second only to spend on health and social care. Most straightforward efficiency savings have already been implemented, meaning that the Government may have to spend now to achieve savings later. What would that mean for the Chancellor’s fiscal rules, which have already been broken 11 times in 12 years?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, initiatives to spend to save were included in the different departments’ spending review bids and they are welcomed by the Treasury. Increased evaluation of policy and programmes allows us to divert resources to where they can make the most difference. Another example of spending to save in SR 2021 was putting more money into the Supporting Families programme. That was informed by a strong evaluation which showed that those targeted interventions up front for families experiencing hardship delivered savings in terms of the number of children entering care and the number of adults and juveniles entering the criminal justice system. It is really hard to deliver spend-to-save measures, but where they work, they can be a really effective tool for delivering better public services for less money.