Whitehall Spending Controls
Oral Answers to Questions — Cabinet Office
11:30 am
John Howell (Henley, Conservative)
How much money was saved as a result of his Department’s cross-Whitehall spending controls in 2012.
Francis Maude (Minister for the Cabinet Office; Horsham, Conservative)
To deal with the enormous budget deficit that the coalition Government inherited from the Labour party opposite, in the days after the general election in May 2010 we introduced tough new spending controls. In the year to March 2012, those controls helped to save the taxpayer no less than £5.5 billion, on top of the £3.75 billion that we saved the year before.
John Howell (Henley, Conservative)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on those figures and ask him whether he agrees that this shows just how wasteful spending was under the previous Government.
Francis Maude (Minister for the Cabinet Office; Horsham, Conservative)
I am afraid that that is the case. It was open to the Leader of the Opposition, when he sat in my position in the Cabinet Office, to introduce the same kind of controls, but it is very unglamorous hard work; one needs to get into the detail. It is a pity that he did
not do it; if he had done, we would not be in quite the fiscal mess that the coalition Government inherited two years ago.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West, Labour)
The Minister has previously made great play of the contracts finder website as an indication of cross-Whitehall spending. Before the summer recess, I tabled a series of questions to all Government Departments about the level of spending on contracts with Atos and Atos Healthcare. It turns out that despite the claim that all the information is on the website, a significant number of contracts with Atos across Whitehall are not on it. Will the Minister review the website to ensure that it is absolutely accurate?
Francis Maude (Minister for the Cabinet Office; Horsham, Conservative)
I must start by saying that we inherited a complete lack of transparency about Government contracts. It was impossible for potential suppliers to the Government to find out what contracts were available. We are gradually reaching a stage at which more and more contracts will be made available transparently, but provisions relating to confidentiality are built into many of the contracts with suppliers that we inherited. We will seek to avoid that in future, but I think the hon. Gentleman will find that many of the Atos contracts stem from the time when his own party was in government.
Marcus Jones (Nuneaton, Conservative)
I welcome the savings that my right hon. Friend has already found, but what more can he do to reduce the burden of excess in Whitehall which has existed over the last few years and which was fostered by the Labour party?
Francis Maude (Minister for the Cabinet Office; Horsham, Conservative)
The longer we stick at this task, the more possibilities of saving yet more money we will find. It is important to protect spending on the front-line services on which the public depend, and we will continue to do that. I am delighted to welcome my hon. Friend Miss Smith to her post: she will give huge support to me in my role of seeking out wasteful spending and driving efficiency through central Government.