Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Main Page: Lord Wallace of Saltaire (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Wallace of Saltaire's debates with the HM Treasury
(6 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The Government have published figures in accordance with the OBR forecasting period, which sets out exactly how this uplift will be met. The OBR forecast goes out to 2028-29, and obviously the uplift goes out further than that. For example, in 2028-29 there will be an extra £4.5 billion, which will be met through an increase of £1.6 billion in R&D spending and £2.9 billion from reducing headcount in the Civil Service to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
Can the Minister reassure us that it is the Treasury’s view that an increase in defence expenditure to 2.5% of GDP is compatible with the promise of further tax cuts, without further cuts in other public spending areas?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I can assure the noble Lord that this has no impact on our ambition to further cut taxes in future. We want to end the unfairness of double taxation of work—we have cut employees’ national insurance contributions by a third—so we do not see that this is incompatible.