In order to prioritise the response to Covid-19, and our
focus on supporting jobs, the Chancellor and the Prime
Minister have decided to conduct a one-year Spending
Review, setting department’s resource and capital budgets
for 2021-22, and Devolved Administration’s block grants for
the same period.
Multi-year NHS and schools’ resource settlements will be
fully funded, as will priority infrastructure projects.
The government has been clear that we would keep plans for
the Spending Review under review given the unprecedented
uncertainty of Covid-19.
While the government would have liked to outline plans for
the rest of this Parliament, the right thing today is to
focus entirely on the response to Covid-19 and supporting
jobs - that’s what the public would expect.
The government has put in place considerable support for
businesses, families and the economy throughout the current
crisis and will continue to show flexibility and creativity
in our response.
The Spending Review will build on that support and focus on
three areas:
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Providing departments with the certainty they need to
tackle Covid-19 and deliver our Plan for Jobs to
support employment;
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Giving our vital public services enhanced support to
continue to fight against the virus alongside
delivering first class frontline services; and
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Investing in infrastructure to deliver our ambitious
plans to unite and level up the country, drive our
economic recovery and Build Back Better.
-
That means the government will continue to deliver on
our commitments and the priorities of the British
people – and to do so the Spending Review will confirm
multi-year capital spending for key programmes where
certainty is needed to ensure no time is lost in
delivery.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, , said:
In the current environment its essential that we provide
certainty. So we’ll be doing that for departments and all
of the nations of the United Kingdom by setting budgets
for next year, with a total focus on tackling Covid and
delivering our Plan for Jobs.
Long term investment in our country’s future is the right
thing to do, especially in areas which are the
cornerstone of our society like the NHS, schools and
infrastructure. We’ll make sure these areas crucial to
our economic recovery have their budgets set for further
years so they can plan and help us Build Back Better.
Further information
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As outlined in July in the interest of fairness we must
exercise restraint in future public sector pay awards,
ensuring that across this year and the spending review
period, public sector pay levels retain parity with the
private sector.
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The precise date for the Review will be confirmed
shortly but it will be in the last weeks of November.
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Hospital building and HS2 are examples of the kind of
capital projects which require multi-year capital
allocations.
