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Smarter Government

I think that I am grateful to both noble Lords for their comments. Given the success that we have already had with the Gershon project, I find the last statement of the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, rather extraordinary. He said that the Government are incapable of effecting savings, but we have a proven record of where we have done so. I hope the noble Lord will at least recognise the strength of that statement, as far as the Government are concerned. I am aware that, like the noble Baroness, he places great emphasis on the comments and conclusions of the National Audit Office. It noted that projects across the programme are making significant improvements to the efficiency of public services. Our £26.5 billion SR04 savings, which were quoted in the Statement, meet the most robust data category of the National Audit Office. It really will not do for noble Lords opposite to suggest that the Government have a poor record on value for money. I understand entirely their criticisms of the projections for the future because they are not in the business of giving the Government credit for their productive approach to this issue. However, they surely cannot gainsay past achievements. Indeed, the Government have a strong record on value for money. We overdelivered on the Gershon target by 20 per cent; this was in the Statement. We achieved £26.5 billion of savings over three years. I am not going to have lectures about how the Government deal with issues of value for money from the Opposition, who have forgotten how to govern, or from the Liberal Democrats, who probably never even knew—or certainly not in a century that we can readily recall. The noble Baroness suggested that this was a dysfunctional Government because the programme was introduced by the Prime Minister, who happens to be responsible for the totality of the Government. As the House will have recognised, the Statement ranges right across the totality of government—the whole area of public service. Of course, the Chancellor has a significant role to play. How could it be otherwise when it is the Chief Secretary to the Treasury who is making the Statement because of his discrete area of responsibility? The relationship between these savings, the overall position in the running of the economy and projections for the next few years relate directly to the fact that this Statement is made on Monday and the Chancellor will be making his Statement on the Pre-Budget Report on Wednesday. Far from it being dysfunctional, I cannot think of a better locking together of two propositions, put before the other place in the space of three days and considered, in due course, in this House. They show the totality of how we see our route to map the economy to deal with what we all recognise, as a result of the credit crunch and the recession, is an immensely challenging position for the Government, in circumstances where resources are bound to be scarce. The noble Baroness asked whether the schedule of savings should be placed in the Library. She knows, of course, that we will be concerned to identify the costs of the programme. I hope the House will forgive me if I go through a little list. We will place the clear figures that we intend to save across a whole range of significant headings. They can be checked against those headings, such as "Increasing energy efficiency"—with a saving of £300 million—and "Reducing consultancy and marketing spend by 50 per cent". That is in the Statement. That is easily checked. We are saying that we intend to save £650 million over this period under that heading. We intend to do so and it can easily be checked. We said that we will rationalise arm’s length bodies. We intend to save £500 million there. We are identifying the number of those arm’s length bodies that we intend to address. We will have a list in due course. I give way.