Speeches by Jones.

“We obviously make the case to the OBR about what we think of our policy decisions. The OBR, as an independent forecaster, has the right to agree or disagree, and to publish its forecasts in the normal way. I am not going to make a judgment on the OBR; I will leave that for this Committee, which holds it to account. But…”

“As the OBR is an independent body, you will know that I am not going to comment on the OBR’s forecast; I will allow the Committee to take a view on that. The one thing I will point out to you, though, is that in recent OBR forecasts, the OBR has scored the growth potential of policy decisions that we have taken, which …”

“Yes, because ultimately, at the end of the day, it just seemed to be building up a whole host of headaches that we have had to deal with. The last Government tried to deal with some of them in the final few years. Cutting a load of police numbers and then rapidly trying to increase them again is not a long-term, sustai…”

“Instead of just setting a target and hoping for the best, we have worked with Departments to understand their plans. Much as with the rest of the spending review, our job now—and particularly my job—is to make sure that we are going back around that with all the Departments and making sure that they are delivering agai…”

“As a Government, our assessment of that was that because of cuts to public expenditure—particularly in those early years post-2010, in the austerity years—and specifically cuts to capital programmes in our infrastructure and our public services, the last Government missed a trick, essentially, to try to stimulate produ…”

“Well, we do not want to be, so we are working hard to bear down on that subsidy and make the train lines commercially viable again. That is why you see a bit of a dip in the RDEL numbers for transport; we are pushing down on that. Compared with what the original plans were, we have increased transport capital spending …”

“You are right that defence and energy security got a big chunk of capital—defence for perhaps obvious reasons, given that our commitments in the defence budget are predominantly capital, because they are buying military equipment. On energy security, we have obviously made quite a big commitment on nuclear energy in it…”

“With your permission, I might break it down into three different bits.”

“It is a question for the Chancellor. We are always guided by our fiscal rules.”

“You are right that we are increasing the R&D budget. In cash terms, it is not at the rate of GDP. With the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, we are also looking at how we gear the R&D budget towards industrial strategy priorities. You will have seen the Business Secretary launch our plans in the highes…”

“Right. I do not know whether we are working from different numbers, so forgive me, but the way I would characterise it is that we have increased the capital budget, based on inherited plans, by £120 billion by 2029-30, when the capital budget ends. Your question is right, though, about the front-loading of that profile…”

“Do you mean £120 billion by 2029-30?”

“As I said earlier, any OBR forecast that looks at the broader fiscal picture, in line with our fiscal rules, is something that the Chancellor will consider at the Budget.”

“The first thing to say is that the Government policy has not changed, and we will be progressing with our reforms to the welfare system. Specifically in terms of the spending review, the bits that are reflected in the departmental settlements, predominantly for DWP, are in respect of their departmental budgets—things l…”

“Thank you for the question. You will no doubt expect me to say that I cannot comment on hypothetical future market movements. To try to answer the question more from a principles perspective, obviously the Chancellor, at Budget time, with the benefit of an OBR forecast, will look at all these things in the round and ma…”

“Yes.”

“The spending review, which goes to ’29-30 on capital, meets Government policy to increase defence spending to 2.6% by 2027, inclusive of intelligence agencies. That is all fully funded in our spending review. We then had an extant commitment to get to 3% in the next Parliament, subject to fiscal circumstances. The Prim…”

“I do not know—you would have to ask the local government Department—but it is a fact that some choose not to, and that is the point that I am making.”

“That is right: a + b = c in the documents—there is no denying that. The only discretionary point that I am making is that some councils have chosen in the past not to use the full 5%.”

“Some councils take different decisions from other councils, but it often depends on the local circumstances. I recognise that.”