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Comprehensive Spending Review

In the private sector, which is already generating tens of thousands of jobs every month. That is what we need to do. I am not saying that there should be a complete staff freeze. For example, if 480,000 a year are leaving, which was the Chancellor's figure in the Budget, 250,000 people could be hired while still achieving half the reduction in the first year. I think that the Chancellor might have been a bit optimistic, but he referred to an 8% rate. If the percentage was half as great, the reduction could still be made in the first two years. There could be reductions of 250,000 without a single redundancy. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends not to pursue the redundancy route wherever possible. It is expensive, unpleasant and disruptive. I do not want to see lots of people retiring early from the administrative services on big pensions, and I do not want to see redundancy payments made with people coming back into the public sector at a later date, leaving us to wonder why all the cost and disruption has been incurred. The next big area that puts pressure on the increased money is debt interest. I entirely agree with the Government, and with Opposition Members who knew this when they were in government, that we have to bring the deficit down before it kills the whole budget. If we allow the deficit to keep on rising, as the Opposition originally proposed, debt interest will take more and more of the increased spending and we will have to make unpleasant cuts to the things that matter. How can we reduce that debt interest burden more quickly? If we can get more cash into the public sector, starting today—we do not need to wait to start the programme next year, as is implied in the figures—we will reduce the increase in the debt day by day. If we sell more assets, we will not have to raise so much money in the debt markets, which will keep the debt down. It is very good news that the Government's programme has restored a lot of confidence in the markets, so that the rate at which they now have to borrow is now lower. That will obviously make a contribution to getting the debt interest rate programme down. I have to say to the Government that I do not think that we can afford to give £80 billion to foreign countries over the CSR period. If we add the overseas aid programme to the European Union programme, the total is £80 billion over the period. I do not want to take any money away from the poorest countries or from humanitarian aid. Those are good things and I fully support the Government's intention to carry on with them, but I do not think that there is any need to subsidise China, India or Russia—nuclear weapons powers with, in the case of China, $2.5 trillion in the bank. It is a bit odd to give China a grant when we then have to borrow the money from China to pay the grant to China. That cannot make any sense. I believe that the Government are now going to remove the aid to the richer and more successful countries. Cannot we pocket that for a couple of years and then become more generous when we have the deficit under control? May we please get the European amounts down? They are the most unforgivable ones; poor people in Britain are paying tax to offer grants to rich countries in Europe, and that is not acceptable in the current conditions. The more that these pressures—the grants abroad, debt interest, costs, inflation and staff numbers—can be abated, the more we will have money available to do better things with the growing programmes. It is good news that nine of the Departments have level or rising cash throughout the period, but it is bad news that one or two other Departments will find that the shoe pinches a lot. That is why I think that we need to make more rapid progress in controlling costs and staff numbers, particularly in administration, and in dealing with the debt interest programmes, so that we have a bit more free to ease those areas that will be very tight in future years. I do not for one moment believe the figures from 2013 to 2015 anyway, because I think that they will subject to subsequent revision because of the pressure of events. As inflation changes, we will need to revise them. As the state of the economy changes, we will need to revise them one way or the other. Let us hope it will outperform and we will have a bit more scope. As an election draws near, politicians tend to want to spend more, so we should discount the 2013-15 figures and concentrate on what is happening now. Will the Government please bring forward as many of the reductions as possible to this year, and not wait until next year? The more we save now, the less we borrow and the more the pressure is reduced on subsequent years' programmes.