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Lord Livermore (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 3 February 2025

Debate

Growing the UK Economy

Contribution

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for raising the £22 billion—he knows it is one of my favourite topics, and I am always very happy to talk about it. It was obviously one of the most shocking features of our inheritance from the previous Government that they had £22 billion of commitments that they did not fund and sought to conceal from various government bodies. That is deeply shocking and should not be taken lightly. The noble Lord has said to me previously that the Government’s budgets are bloated; most government departments would dispute that, after decades of austerity under the party opposite. We know that public services are stretched extremely thin. I have asked him before for his examples of that bloating, and what savings he would propose. I would be more than happy to discuss any potential savings that he has in mind, but I think they are unlikely to reach the level that he describes.

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