Oral Answers to Questions

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

It is great to see the good work going on in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Of course, her question is for our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, who I am sure is considering it carefully.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

8. What recent steps he has taken to help ensure value for money in public spending.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

13. What steps his Department is taking to manage the public finances effectively.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)]

People are rightly angry that fraudsters stole from covid support schemes, as am I. When the schemes were launched, there was cross-party consensus that we needed speed to protect jobs, and because of our action unemployment peaked at 5.2%, not the 12% predicted at the start of the pandemic. We designed the schemes to prevent as much fraud as possible, and lenders stopped nearly £2.2 billion of potential fraud from the bounce back loan schemes. We continue to take action on multiple fronts to recover money that was claimed fraudulently.

[Nia Griffith]

It is not just a matter of fraud; it is a matter of incompetence as well. The National Audit Office has been scathing about the UK’s wasteful spending of £37 billion on private contractors to deliver the test and trace system in England, while we in Wales had a more efficient system through partnership with the Welsh Government and local councils. What guidance is the Chief Secretary giving Departments on how to avoid giving such wasteful contracts in the future? Does the guidance include considering, wherever practicable, the delivery of service contracts through public authorities, where any profit remains in the public purse?

[Mr Clarke]

We always continue to encourage best value, and this is at the heart of all Treasury documents on the use of public money. On the hon. Lady’s point about test and trace, it is very important to reaffirm that the great majority of the costs associated with this scheme were about testing as opposed to tracing, and it was only that scheme that allowed us to come through the enormous challenges of the period, particularly prior to the availability of the vaccine, in a way that allowed our society and our wider economy to keep going to the extent that they could.