Spending Review - 26th June 2013

13:01 Mr Osborne

The Department of Energy and Climate Change will do this while reducing its resource budget by 8%. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will see a 10% reduction, but we will set out plans for a major commitment to new flood defences for the rest of this decade. Again, we are prioritising long-term capital through day-to-day cost savings, which is exactly the tough choice that Britain should be making.

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13:33 Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)

As for the idea that this spending review will strengthen our economy for the long term, let me ask the Chancellor some questions. Where is the proper British investment bank that business wants? Where is the 2030 decarbonisation target that the energy companies say that they need if they are to be able to invest for the future? Where is the backstop power to break up the banks if there is no reform, which the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards called for? And whatever happened to the Heseltine plan’s much-heralded £49 billion single pot growth fund for the regions? A mere £2 billion is pathetic.

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14:13 Barry Gardiner (Labour)

Because 67% of the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s budget is ring-fenced for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the Chancellor’s 8% cut actually equates to a 35% cut when the Department has to deliver an infrastructure plan which, at £200 billion, is the largest this country has ever seen. How is it going to be able to do that?

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14:13 Mr Osborne

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about infrastructure capacity in Whitehall, and we will set out changes to infrastructure delivery tomorrow. The Department of Energy and Climate Change is part of that. Not only is the Energy Secretary on the case, but the new permanent secretary, Stephen Lovegrove, is too, and they are confident that they can deliver this within the budget.

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14:19 Mr Osborne

We have introduced investment. We have increased investment in renewable energy, so that a record amount is now going in. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury will set out the strike prices this week, which will give long-term investors the certainty needed to increase renewable energy investment.

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14:24 Nia Griffith (Labour)

Confidence to invest long term in industry has been severely damaged by the Government’s creation of uncertainty over the EU, their failure to set 2030 decarbonisation targets, and their failure to control excessively high energy prices. The steel industry faces a crisis in demand. How many of the Chancellor’s mythical lists of infrastructure projects will actually begin this year?

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