Autumn Statement Resolutions

Debate between Carol Monaghan and John Glen

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I am, as ever, grateful to my right hon. Friend, and he made the same point when I was previously at the Dispatch Box. As he knows, the Bank of England is independent. He asks about quantitative tightening, and I am sure such matters will feature in conversations between the Chancellor and the Governor.

The new taxes will help to pay for the £55 billion of help for households and businesses with their energy bills, in one of the largest support plans in Europe. From April, we will continue the energy price guarantee for a further 12 months at a higher level of £3,000 a year for the average household.

Our support for public services means that, despite needing to find £55 billion in savings and tax rises, we are protecting the amount going into public services in real terms over the five-year period. Overall departmental spending will grow at an average of 3.7% a year over the 2021 spending review period. Departments will be required to find efficiency savings to manage pressures from inflation. After the spending review period, day-to-day spending will continue to grow in real terms, but slower than previously planned at 1% a year in real terms until 2027-28. We are launching an efficiency and savings review, which will include reprioritising lower-value and low-priority programme spending and reviewing the effectiveness of public bodies.

I now turn to our most vital public service, the NHS. The nation stood outside their homes and clapped for NHS workers every Thursday during the pandemic, and we did so because of their sacrifice during the historic pandemic. It is now incumbent on us to help address the issues they face, the workforce shortages and the pressures on the social care sector.

To recruit and retain our dedicated NHS workforce, the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS will publish an independently verified plan for the number of doctors, nurses and other professionals we will need in five, 10 and 15 years’ time.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Will the Minister confirm that the reason why we have such terrible bed-blocking and such terrible staff shortages in care homes and social care is because we cannot recruit from across Europe in the way we did before Brexit?

[John Glen]

I cannot account for what is happening in Scotland, but there are £1.5 billion of Barnett consequentials from the autumn statement. I have been clear with the House that the workforce plan is designed to set out transparently where the gaps are, and obviously it will be for various Government Departments to respond to that.