Speeches by Dean.

“Ms Rigby, you talked about trade-offs just then. Earlier in the discussion, there did not seem to be an acknowledgment that this plan has any gaps, reductions or shortfalls from what the Ministry of Defence might have wanted previously. That does not seem to make sense to us, not just because of the resignation of John…”

“It is not about the overall borrowing constraints. It is about what drives the spending within that envelope.”

“Do you recognise those types of figures?”

“Mr Pollard, let us move on to a different trade-off about the split between capital and revenue expenditure—you have touched on that already. There is obviously a leaning into capital expenditure; is that because the fiscal rules drive spending in that way, and there is more headroom on the capital side, generally spea…”

“Can I ask about defence bonds? I do not specifically mean separating out from the fiscal rules, as I know some people have proposed; I mean offering fixed-term issuance of a legally hypothecated bond, which other nations have considered doing. What analysis has the Treasury made of that type of proposal? Is it still un…”

“Could I refocus the fiscal rules question? With the accounting definition as it is between revenue and capital, can you see how it could create artificial constraints sometimes, because you kind of assume the revenues, consumption and capital investment? It seems that there are some really worthy human capital investme…”

“The stated intention as you set it out was clear, and the criticism was that we are not going to borrow from capital to plug gaps in revenue expenditure. We have made it clear today that a lot of the increase in the defence budget will go into revenue, and it is being taken from the capital allocation of other Departme…”

“In addition to the similarities to the black hole commentary in 2024, another thing that was made a big point of in the 2024 Budget was the previous Government’s tendency to take from the capital account to plug gaps in revenue expenditure. We have just heard that up to 75% of the increase, I think you said, is to do w…”

“Yes—equivalent to 3p to 4p on all rates of income tax. Is that a discussion that the Government are prepared to have with the public—that they may have to pay significantly more in tax to pay for defence?”

“You have focused on spending there. That is what this review has done. We have talked about moving around spending across different Departments. Is it going to be a bigger question than that? We have heard evidence that, to get from 2.6% to 3.5% of GDP, you are talking around £30 billion to £40 billion extra.”

“It is that sort of scale, isn’t it?”

“Or is that just tomorrow’s problem, and we will deal with it later?”

“But the Government have stated their ambition to get there. That is why we are asking questions about it. I have put it in tax terms, but you could put it in spending terms. If we are going to draw that amount of money out of other spending Departments, that looks pretty like austerity. Which of those courses are you p…”

“13. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of his Department's long-term resilience planning for climate change.”

“The Office for Budget Responsibility fiscal report, out today, highlights some of the long-term risks of climate damage to the UK’s finances. Unlike other OBR reports at formal fiscal events, there are no implications for the Government; they do not have to make any adjustments to their current financial planning. If h…”

“I am pleased to hear the Government accept that part of the issue here is successive Governments’ obsession with outsourcing by default. I ask the Minister for some reassurance that, when assessing the merits of insourcing this particular contract, they will not do so in isolation, but will also take into account the w…”

“I join the whole House in congratulating the England team, in particular Tottenham Hotspur academy product Harry Kane for his heroics last night. I am also grateful to the Conservatives for their lecture on sanctimony, though I note that self-awareness was never their strongest trait. This week my community was rocked …”

“Mr Townsend, I wanted to raise with you the prospect of reforms in the areas of business rates. This Committee has heard lots of evidence about different reforms out there. One of them—a proportional property tax or a commercial landowner levy—would put all the liability on to the property owner going forward. There ar…”

“Leaving aside all those other elements, because we are not going to work that out in today’s session, and assuming that they could maintain some sort of local revenue link for authorities, specifically on the tax evasion measure, would that create the right level of incentive for the landlords to have responsible tenan…”

“To deliver on this review’s recommendations in full will require serious capital investment. Just last week, we heard that St Helier, the hospital in my constituency, was considering closing its maternity unit altogether due to potentially unsafe pipework. Will the Government commit to reviewing the phasing of the new …”