Public Expenditure: Monitoring (Hansard, 26 October 1983)

§ Lord Diamond
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Lord Glenarthur)
My Lords, the monitoring of public expenditure during the current financial year is a key priority. Special attention is being given by the Treasury and spending departments to monitoring the pattern of spending during and at the end of the year. Discussions are taking place with local authority associations about better monitoring of local authority expenditure.

§ Lord Diamond
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for telling us what is happening about public expenditure in the current year. Can he confirm that there was a General Election on 9th June, and is he aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer made a Statement on public expenditure in another place exactly four weeks later? Is he further aware that during the course of that Statement he explained that information about public expenditure came in regularly, week by week or day by day, and that the trouble about public expenditure overshooting its mark arose in the last three months of the last financial year and in the first three months of this financial year; that is to say, in the first six months of this calendar year? Is it not obvious that information was available to the Government before polling day just as much as it was available after polling day, and that the Government can therefore be properly charged with a lack of good faith in not telling the electors the full position about public expenditure—and, indeed, about the National Health Service—before polling day?

§ Lord Glenarthur
My Lords, yes I can confirm that there was a General Election on 9th June, as the noble Lord asks. So far as concerns his charge about knowledge of the increase in the public sector borrowing requirement, I can say that, as he knows, spending has been higher than expected and this was the main reason why my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made reductions in the cash limits and announced them on 7th July. He included among them the fact that there was to be extra spending on social security benefits largely because of the higher rates of take-up of supplementary benefit and agricultural support. I can assure the noble Lord that the Treasury monitors the progress of the PSBR throughout the financial year.

§ Lord Boyd-Carpenter
My Lords, while not wishing to join the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, in refighting the last General Election, the outcome of which seems to me to have been wholly satisfactory, may I ask my noble friend whether the monitoring of public expenditure by the Public Accounts Committee and the Comptroller and Auditor General has been made even more effective by the legislation passed at the end of the last Parliament?

§ Lord Glenarthur
My Lords, I must confess that I am not entirely sure of the legislation to which my noble friend refers. I can say, however, that so far as letting Parliament see forecast profiles is concerned, this is something which, as he probably knows, has been recommended by the Procedure Committee in respect of finance. The Government are considering this and other recommendations.

Lord Bruce of Donington
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that his noble friend Lord Cockfield made it clear to the House before the election that public expenditure was of two kinds, demand expenditure and expenditure that was limited by cash limits? Is the noble Lord telling the House that the Government were not aware before the General Election that demand expenditure, including expenditure on unemployment, was going to continue to rise and that if the Government felt constrained to keep within their 248 total expenditure limit of £126,000 million then the cash limit expenditure would have to go down, as we have now experienced with expenditure planned on the National Health Service?

§ Lord Glenarthur
My Lords, I think that it would be a mistake to get drawn now into a debate on Health Service cuts to which the noble Lord refers. But the fact is that the forecast of the public sector borrowing requirements at the time of the Budget was £7.5 billion the outturn was £9.1 billion. The under-forecast of the central Government borrowing requirement's own account element of the public sector borrowing requirement was £1 billion. The remainder was on the local authority borrowing requirement. That may not entirely answer the noble Lord's question, but I hope that if he wants further information on how that difference is made up, I can give it to him in writing.

Lord Bruce of Donington
My Lords, I am sorry to press the noble Lord further. Is he aware that the Question in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, does not refer to the public sector borrowing requirement? Is he further aware that so far the Treasury appear to be unable to arrive at estimates of the PSBR which are accurate to the nearest £1,000 million?

§ Lord Glenarthur
My Lords, once estimates have been made it is very important that they be controlled and that costs and all those other elements which go towards the financial structure of the country are maintained by proper management, by proper organisation and, where possible, by proper forecasting.

§ Lord Diamond
My Lords, is not the Minister absolutely right in saying that now is not the time to be drawn into a general debate on public expenditure? Therefore, would it not follow from that, that in order to enable the House to discuss these matters fully and to enable the Government to defend their good faith—and they were under attack from wide sections of the population for bad faith during the General Election—he should discuss with his friends the possibility of time being provided by the Government for a full debate on these important issues?

§ Lord Glenarthur
My Lords, that of course is a matter for the usual channels.