Treasury and Work and Pensions

I will make some progress. On education spending, let us listen to the Select Committee on Education and Skills:"““The Government needs to take great care in making claims about the efficiency of increased investment in education…which the evidence cannot be proved to support.””" But, of course, the Chief Secretary put it best when he said bluntly that"““a lot of money has been spent but very little seems to have been achieved””." Why is that? It is because the Chancellor broke his promise that not a penny would be spent unless it was accompanied by reform. He gave the spending Departments everything that they asked for, and got nothing in return. The Granita touch has never deserted him. Now the Treasury is engaged in another comprehensive spending review. Let us consider some of the things that we think that the Chancellor should review. Let us review the centrepiece of this year’s Budget: what he called his pledge to raise future spending on state schools to today’s private school levels. Though cheered to the rafters by the lemmings on the Labour Benches, the Education and Skills Committee now says that the Chancellor’s Budget promise is ““without substance””. The Institute for Fiscal Studies calls it ““virtually meaningless””. Tackling poor education and skills is perhaps the greatest challenge facing our economy, and his policy is called ““virtually meaningless””. It has gone from being a pledge to an aspiration, from a rabbit out of the hat on Budget day to a rabbit in the headlights of the spending review.