By Tash Shifrin
The Conservatives will not set out their public spending plans because they ‘haven’t seen the books’, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Philip Hammond told Public Finance at the CIPFA conference in Manchester.
Hammond was coy about how his party aimed to reduce the government deficit and restore the public finances in his June 25 speech – although he reiterated that ‘the brunt of the burden is going to have to be borne by public spending’.
He told delegates: ‘Anyone with a calculator and a copy of the Budget Red Book can work out the implications of the fiscal crisis themselves.’
But Hammond told PF he could not spell out where the Conservatives would make cutbacks because the party did not have sufficient information about the government’s finances. ‘We genuinely haven’t seen the books,’ he said.
The party is able to discuss potential changes to the machinery of government with senior civil servants, he said. But on fiscal matters, ‘we don’t get any briefing’ and there is ‘no access’ to Treasury information except that in the public domain.
In his conference speech, Hammond said that under current government policy, departmental spending limits would be cut by 7% in real terms over three years. He told PF these figures were drawn from the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ Budget analysis.
But the Conservatives ‘expect a revision’ of Chancellor Alistair Darling’s Budget figures in the autumn Pre-Budget Report, he said. ‘I’ll be astonished if the government sticks precisely to those figures.’
Hammond told CIPFA delegates that the Conservatives would challenge ‘the bogus assumption that less cost means poorer outcomes’. The public sector faced ‘the challenge of sustaining and improving public services while cutting the cost of delivery’, he said.
‘I believe we need... an approach which is based on the concept of innovation, a bottom-up approach.’
Hammond also attacked the government’s economic record, warning of ‘the real possibility of a debt trap’.
The Conservatives will not set out their public spending plans because they ‘haven’t seen the books’, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Philip Hammond told Public Finance at the CIPFA conference in Manchester.
Hammond was coy about how his party aimed to reduce the government deficit and restore the public finances in his June 25 speech – although he reiterated that ‘the brunt of the burden is going to have to be borne by public spending’.
He told delegates: ‘Anyone with a calculator and a copy of the Budget Red Book can work out the implications of the fiscal crisis themselves.’
But Hammond told PF he could not spell out where the Conservatives would make cutbacks because the party did not have sufficient information about the government’s finances. ‘We genuinely haven’t seen the books,’ he said.
The party is able to discuss potential changes to the machinery of government with senior civil servants, he said. But on fiscal matters, ‘we don’t get any briefing’ and there is ‘no access’ to Treasury information except that in the public domain.
In his conference speech, Hammond said that under current government policy, departmental spending limits would be cut by 7% in real terms over three years. He told PF these figures were drawn from the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ Budget analysis.
But the Conservatives ‘expect a revision’ of Chancellor Alistair Darling’s Budget figures in the autumn Pre-Budget Report, he said. ‘I’ll be astonished if the government sticks precisely to those figures.’
Hammond told CIPFA delegates that the Conservatives would challenge ‘the bogus assumption that less cost means poorer outcomes’. The public sector faced ‘the challenge of sustaining and improving public services while cutting the cost of delivery’, he said.
‘I believe we need... an approach which is based on the concept of innovation, a bottom-up approach.’
Hammond also attacked the government’s economic record, warning of ‘the real possibility of a debt trap’.
