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Pre-Budget Report and Comprehensive Spending Review

It is funny that the hon. Gentleman should say that, because at the last election the Conservatives said that they could get lots of savings out of paperclips, and it did not turn out to be the election winner that they thought it might be. When we started to look at what was being proposed, we found, just as we are finding now, that one did not have to look too far to see that promises were being made on the basis of money that had not yet been saved. That way lies the very instability that I have talked about. On the hon. Gentleman's more serious point, I agree that Government can always be more efficient. I said in my statement that our review identified £30 billion-worth of savings, which Departments will have to accomplish because if they want to meet the spending that they have set out they will have to find that efficiency saving. Following the Gershon report, £20 billion has already been saved; I have not the slightest doubt that all Government Departments, and the public sector generally, can always do more, and the pressure that the hon. Gentleman's Select Committee brings to bear on Departments in this regard is useful.