| This
week Gordon Brown opened up his war chest. The
Chancellor announced billions of extra
expenditure – on education, the NHS,
transport and so on. Since
this is our money, we are entitled to ask, is the
Government now spending too much?
In my view, it is not. In fact,
I think Labour should have begun these spending
rises for schools and hospitals three years ago!
Nonetheless, in some areas,
Gordon Brown is now probably spending at the
right levels. The extra cash for transport and
defence, for example, looks enough to do the job.
Yet in some crucial areas, it
still looks too little. Especially in education,
pensions and law and order.
This extra spending is
desperately needed because spending has fallen so
low.
Last year total public spending
was at its lowest since 1964 – only 38.3% as
a ratio of national income.
|
Even
after this new rise, spending in 2004 will only
be 40.5% of national income, still much lower
than in most years of the last few decades - and
much lower than in most other developed
countries. So it’s
hard to argue, as the Conservatives are trying
to, that spending is running out of control. In
fact, it would severely damage the police and our
schools if a future Government cut billions from
spending as William Hague is proposing.
It’s partly because
spending has been pushed so low in recent years
– under both Conservatives and Labour - that
we’ve lost so many police officers locally.
It’s because public spending has been cut
back that there are problems in the NHS, and our
schools are struggling to make ends meet.
As the Treasury Select
Committee on which I serve analyses this
spending, I will ask Gordon Brown how he will
make sure this money will be well spent. But I
will also be asking whether he really is
investing enough in our children’s future
and in the police.
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