Public Spending

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

As I said earlier, the reason we face such a tough spending round is the overriding need to bring our deficit down further and faster than was planned by the previous Government. That is necessary to restore confidence in our economy and restore balance to our public finances. It is the overriding priority, and it will restore jobs and growth in this country faster than the last Government would have managed.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I wonder whether I can help the Chief Secretary by providing the answer that he failed to provide in response to an earlier question about value for money. Will he acknowledge that over the three years for which the Sheffield Forgemasters loan was under consideration, the Treasury conducted an extremely robust value-for-money exercise? This Government talk a great deal about consultation, but before the statement I spoke to the chairman of Sheffield Forgemasters, who confirmed that over the period of the Government’s review there has been no contact whatever with the company. Will the Chief Secretary confirm that fact?

[Danny Alexander]

What I can confirm to the hon. Gentleman is that we have applied value-for-money grounds to this as to all the other projects. With a restricted budget, however, we must make choices about where we can spend money, and unfortunately we simply cannot afford to provide funds for this project any longer. As I have said, officials from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will continue to work with the company in helping to find a private sector solution to the challenge.