Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

We keep these matters under review, but I am sure my colleague the Financial Secretary, who takes a close interest in these matters, will follow up in the appropriate way.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

7. What steps his Department is taking to help ensure value for money in public spending.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

10. What steps his Department is taking to help ensure value for money in public spending.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)]

Value for money is a central priority for the Government and at the heart of every decision we take. The Government take our responsibility for managing the public purse seriously. The Government recently launched the efficiency and savings review, and that will help to keep spending focused on the Government’s priorities and manage pressures from higher inflation. It will include renewing our efforts to drive efficiency, tackle waste and re-prioritise spending away from lower value and lower priority programmes.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I hear what the Minister has just said, but he will be as aware as I am that, in the 2020-21 annual report from the Department of Health and Social Care, the Government wrote off a total of £8.7 billion-worth of the personal protective equipment they had acquired in the first year of the pandemic. When families are facing a choice between heating and eating this Christmas, does the Minister understand the real public anger that people are facing these difficulties at this time, when the Government are having such rampant waste of public money?

[John Glen]

I acknowledge that figure in that report, but it refers to the write-down that was necessary following a situation where we acquired a lot of PPE at a time of acute demand and shortage of supply. It was an adjustment for that. Of course, 97% of all PPE was suitable for use in healthcare and non-healthcare settings. While I take the general point that the hon. Lady is making about concern for the most vulnerable in communities, which has been addressed by the £37 billion of support we have put in this year, those are the facts around the figure that she raises.