FactCheck: public spending PMQs
Updated on 01 July 2009
When will investment spending start to fall? And can the Tories really want unemployment to rise? And when is a zero per cent rise a rise?
The claim
"I've told him previously that current spending is going to rise and that capital spending will fall after 2011. These are the public spending predictions for the future."
Gordon Brown, prime minister's questions, 1 July 2009
The analysis
Not quite. The budget puts capital spending (investment; think new schools and hospitals as opposed to current spending, which goes on things like public sector wages) at £44bn in the current financial year, 2009-10. This is up from £29bn in 2007-8 and £37.7bn in 2008-9.
But next year, 2010-11, investment spending will fall to £36bn, then to £29bn in 2011-12, £26bn in 2012-13, and £22bn in 2013-14.
So capital spending will start to fall in 2010 - a year earlier than Brown claims.
The claim
"The reason we have advanced spending to 2009-10 is so we can get out of recession. Capital spending we have advanced to 2009-10 and 2010-11 is not available therefore after 2011. Capital spending will rise till 2011 and then will fall."
Gordon Brown, prime minister's questions, 1 July 2009
The analysis
Brown attacks the Tories for wanting to cut spending now; instead, the government is splashing the cash now in order to get us out of recession sooner, and then tighten the purse strings. But is this fiscal stimulation the only reason investment spending is now set to fall in the future?
The 2008 budget did pencil in investment sums which rose consistently and gradually, unlike the big increase followed by the big fall that we see now.
According to the 2008 budget plans, investment over the five-year period from 2008-9 to 2012-13 (as far ahead as the projections went) was set to be £184bn. But the 2009 budget has total investment over the same period dropping to £172.7bn
And either way, investment spending - as of 2010, rather than 2011 as Brown says today - is set to fall.
The claims
"[The Conservatives] are the party of unemployment. They are premising all their spending plans on unemployment continuing to rise."
Gordon Brown, prime minister's questions, 1 July 2009
The analysis
Brown's got form when it comes to drawing dubious dividing lines between his spending plans, and those of the Tories. Bundled up in this exchange is the spectre of the 10 per cent cut Brown has repeatedly claimed to be Tory policy - but it's a 10 per cent cut based on the government's own spending plans.
Once increased spending on debt interest and unavoidable expenditure, including benefits, is factored in, the budget itself pencils in a real-terms cut in departmental spending over three years. The only difference under Conservative plans is that health spending would be spared the axe, so other departments would face deeper cuts - 10 rather than 7 per cent - in turn.
Similarly, Cameron's spending plans are based on rising unemployment - but so are the government's.
The budget tells us that the forecasts for annually managed expenditure (that unavoidable slice of the cake that eats into spending on public services) has been updated in line with recent independent predictions on unemployment.
And these predict, we are told in box C1, that UK claimant unemployment will rise from recent levels of 1.39 million to 2.09 million at the end of 2009, and to 2.44 million at the end of 2010.
The claim
"Total spending will continue to rise - and that it's a zero per cent rise in 2013-14. "
Gordon Brown, prime minister's questions, 1 July 2009
The analysis
A zero per cent rise? Surely that's better known as, well, not a rise. A stabilisation, maybe. A flatline. Or just, staying the same. Either way, let's check the numbers.
Total spending, as we've explained before, is set to rise in cash terms (i.e. not adjusted for inflation). But this isn't terribly meaningful, as cash spending has risen every year since 1948. Once we adjust for inflation, spending is set for a real-terms cut of an average 0.1 per cent a year from 2011.
In 2012-13, total spending is predicted to be £738bn. If spending were to remain constant in real terms year on year, it would be £758.295bn in 2013-14. Sure enough, total spending is £758bn in 2013-14.
How this is a rise, and why Brown is showing off about it, we're not sure. His spokesperson later told reporters he had meant to refer to a rise in current spending, but had been interrupted before he could correct himself.
The sources
Budget 2009
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