Wednesday 26 June 2013

Prestidigitation - £8 billion apparently 'saved' - or at least "disappeared' in the blink of an eye .....

PMQs: Government has earmarked £11bn for housing investment, says David Cameron - video
Prime minister David Cameron tells the House of Commons during PMQs that house building is increasing at its fastest rate for more than two years. Cameron also explains to MPs that the government has earmarked £11bn for housing investment.

a short while later :-

Comprehensive spending review 2013: George Osborne's £3bn for housing - video
Chancellor George Osborne, announcing his comprehensive spending review for 2015-16, tells MPs of the government's £3bn of capital investment in housing and plans to extend a scheme to help troubled families. Osborne also praises communities and local government secretary Eric Pickles as a 'model of lean government' over embracing spending cuts.

4 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

I can't be bothered watching the vids, but maybe they were doing a Gordon Brown and mixing and matching between "spending in the next year" and "total spending over the next random number of years"?

Bob E said...

I think the key buzzword was indeed "earmarked", and if you were giving benefit of the doubt you might assume that between now and the end of the present 2010 - 2015 CSR period the Mighty Ding was suggesting that that at least £8 billion was to be applied to "housing investment" [which is of course sufficiently ambiguous in itself] and possibly up to £11 billion, and that not long later the Chancellor added there was a further £3 billion "earmarked" for "housing investment" in 2015 - 2016, although as things stand the Grand Alliance will have about six or so weeks in which to have changed that "earmarked" into "committed expenditure" ...

Bob E said...

Danny Alexander "clears things up" ... as reported following Danny's statement on "future capital spending" today ...

"Announcing long-term capital spending until the end of the decade, the chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, also unveiled plans for a major road-building programme as well as an affordable housing programme. The National Housing Federation said the £3bn spending promised over the next two years was deeply disappointing in light of previous cuts.

Alexander claimed the government had already built 84,000 affordable homes, and the new money would lead to a further 165,000 homes being built."

Bob E said...

Danny clears things up - as reported following his statement today on the Capital Spending programme:-

"Announcing long-term capital spending until the end of the decade, the chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, also unveiled plans for a major road-building programme as well as an affordable housing programme. The National Housing Federation said the £3bn spending promised over the next two years was deeply disappointing in light of previous cuts.

Alexander claimed the government had already built 84,000 affordable homes, and the new money would lead to a further 165,000 homes being built.

****

Much of the extra capital spending will be funded by a £15bn sell-off of public assets by 2020 including the £10bn student loan book and £5bn in land and property."