The UK’s treasury minister has defended the £950-a-day pay which the Government’s new value-for-money tsar will receive.
Darren Jones, a Bristol North West MP, said the rate of return for the improvements the UK would make looking at areas of spending “will be far, far greater”.
Speaking to LBC about David Goldstone, who will head up the new Office for Value for Money (OVFM), he said: “It is right that we pay people for their time. We can’t expect people to work for free. That is an important way in which we do things in this country. Actually, the day rate for David is, on a benchmark basis, competitive.”
Mr Jones was also asked if he believed the markets would take fright after Labour’s Budget, similar to what happened after Liz Truss’s mini-budget.
He replied: “No, I don’t, because we have got strong and robust fiscal rules in place. One of the reasons it is very different from the Liz Truss period is we have got the stability rule which means that day-to-day spending of public services will be paid for by tax receipts, not borrowing money each and every month as the last government did.”
Mr Jones said the UK had “PTSD from Liz Truss” amid questions about market jitters following Labour’s first Budget in Government.
Asked about the market response to the Budget, he said: “markets always respond to budgets in the normal way. There’s a lot of new information about the economy and the nation’s finances presented to Parliament, and it’s normal for markets to respond.”
Mr Jones later added: “Under Liz Truss, as we saw, they sacked permanent secretary, they ignored the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. They announced £45bn of unfunded tax cuts and said they were only just getting started. And then the market went mad and we all know what happened. Completely different in contrast to now.”