Burnham's Government Will Waste BILLIONS of Taxpayer Money | Steve Baker

[00:00:00]Let's talk to Steve Baker, though, uh former cabinet office minister. Steve, very good morning to you.

[00:00:04]>> Good morning, Mike. Well, a great summary there for us what Andy Burnham has done. I I did read somewhere that Lou- Louise Haigh's motive, if I recall correctly, uh was to obtain a mobile phone upgrade.

[00:00:16]>> Oh, really? Yeah, so you report it stolen in order to get an upgrade. Why don't you just go into the shop, like most people do, and say, "Can I have an upgrade, please?" That'll be £29.

[00:00:25]>> It is the officials I feel sorry for.

[00:00:27]There are serious officials in the cabinet office trying to do propriety and ethics and other matters like national security, as you say. And Lou- Louise Haigh's appointment is like an open goal for ridicule. And I actually feel quite sorry for senior officials trying to do a good job, um having to follow her as a minister.

[00:00:46]>> Well, I said this morning, um and I know that that you've been in in in the the business of of running the country, that we So, basically, Labour have admitted that for the last 2 years, we've had a load of individuals who didn't know what they were doing. And they've all now been swept away, swept out, um mostly not to be um given other other opportunities in in cabinet. Um and we've now got another load of people coming in who supposedly do know what they're doing.

[00:01:12]>> Well, Mike, I mean, from my point of view, uh the Labour Party just simply doesn't know what it's doing. Um it's not all bad. Let me just try, in the interests of decency, to just find some good. One good thing is that Andy Burnham's scrapping digital ID, and I think that is an excellent one. Um the two appointments which I think are strokes of genius. One is um John Healey, because he, of course, resigned over underfunding of defense. He'll now have to take responsibility for finding that money. And um sending Ed Miliband overseas, as your earlier callers, and you were saying, you know, great idea to get Ed Miliband overseas. It'll be open hypocrisy as he travels uh so far by plane. And um just getting him out of the country. Uh of course, it's not great news on the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero because his replacement is definitely a true believer. So, um, I'm afraid we're not looking at abundant cheap industrial energy prices uh, yet, but um, at least Ed Miliband will be uh, somewhere else.

[00:02:11]>> Well, I mean, that is true and that is good and and I quite like the idea of encouraging him to be a hypocrite, which is which is also a bit of a stroke of a genius. But but what about his first So, his first move um, was to say that he's going to do away with homelessness and lots of people have said this morning, "Oh, no, he hasn't said that. He's just said he's going to do away with rough sleeping." Well, you know, you can take your pick out of either either of those two things. And he's given us all £48 back because apparently we're not going to pay VAT anymore uh, on uh, on our on our electricity bills. But we've worked that out at 90 p a day.

[00:02:42]>> No, a week.

[00:02:43]>> Sorry, 90 p a week, sorry. Uh, 90 p a week. I mean, you know, is he taking the mickey?

[00:02:49]>> Yeah, you couldn't make that one up, could you? I mean, I think it is worth saying it's a Brexit win to be able to take uh, VAT off energy. Um, and there's quite a few Brexit wins which they're clinging onto and trying to have as carve outs in their EU reset, which of course means subordination. But um, yeah, that is a Brexit win, but it's not worth very much to the public. But this happens time and again to your point earlier about DWP fraud. The state always sees sees things from the state's point of view. So, they give us 90 p a week back by taking the VAT down. But um, they're looking at it from the government's point of view, which is the enormous sum that it cost the government to do that on all of our bills. It would be nice if ministers as representatives of the public looked at things from the public's point of view. And that means we need much more abundant and lower priced electricity, which means not for example, uh, paying wind turbines to produce energy we can't use. So, you know, it is time for a bit more common sense on energy policy, but it's all terribly complicated and we're terribly bound in by law. Um, so yeah, I mean, that that that's that is a good example of why the state gets things wrong. It looks at things from its own point of view.

[00:03:56]>> Yes, but how I mean, the numbers that Labour is telling us about there with the Department of Work and Pensions are massive, aren't they? I mean, hundreds and hundreds of of of millions of pounds just going missing. How How does that happen? And how is a government department able to get away with not being properly audited?

[00:04:12]>> Well, you you know, you and your listeners are right to be outraged about it. These are enormous sums of money to go missing. But if you're asking me sort of dispassionately, how does it happen?

[00:04:20]An enormous department with very complicated systems, they also made a big administrative error over, I think it was carer's allowance.

[00:04:29]So, you know, these things happen within departments. And unfortunately, when you're spending so much money with so many people, small act by a few people, one or a few people can become a really problem. So, what do you do? I mean, I This is one of the reasons why I'm a libertarian. I would like government to be very very much smaller. I would like welfare to be delivered in different ways, more locally, more mutually, to try and deal with these problems of having an enormous centralized department whose small mistakes can become incredibly expensive. But we're a long way away from government departments doing any of that. As to how they get away with it, well, there'll be stiff letters written internally. I expect the Treasury's written a stiff letter to the secretary the permanent secretary of the department, reminding him of responsibilities and so on. Um but you know, it is a bit of a hospital pass to be the secretary the permanent secretary of that department because you are responsible for audit and propriety and so forth.

[00:05:26]And when it's as big as it is and as complicated as it is, it's [clears throat] um a Herculean task to get fraud down at all, which is not to excuse it. It's just those are the numbers.

[00:05:38]>> I think a lot of people though watching this and watching your explanation there will will will be asking the question, "Yeah, but if I was in um you know, a private business a you know, a regular regular sort of commercial operation, you get called in by the chief exec, you get said you get told, you know, this is outrageous, this is out of control, what are you doing about it? What, you know, methods are you putting in place to to recover the money or what are you going to do to stop people from taking the money?

[00:06:04]And something would be done. Whereas it seems to me that this continually going on. He said, I think he said it was in 1988 was the last time they actually had properly audited accounts. I mean, that's a very long time ago. And you just kind of go, well, do people just shiv shove the paper from side to side and you know, put it over there and then come back over round back this way. You know what I mean? It's like it doesn't seem realistic.

[00:06:27]>> Well, Mike, I'm back in business and I'm accounting to the penny and worrying every quarter about my VAT return and all the rest of it. It's all got to be absolutely right because we all know, those of us in the private sector, that the state would come down on us like an absolute ton of bricks if we made mistakes. And yet, you're right, the state does appear to be treated differently. And I'm afraid it's true, the state and the private sector are two different categories of what people do, human action, and they are treated differently. And yeah, there will be stiff letters, there'll be select committee appearances, there'll be assurances given and all the rest of it.

[00:07:03]And on rolls the waste of millions and actually billions of pounds. And that is why the state should be made smaller.

[00:07:10]And so, when I hear Labour politicians calling for the active state and putting all their faith in more and bigger government and greater amounts of devolution, I think, well, you'll get more waste and error and fraud as you do it. And it's time really for the public to to demand better of their politicians. Uh but really I suppose the my main point is it is inevitable that a giant department spending so much money will waste and lose so much of it when the incentives are different for the state compared to the private sector.

[00:07:42]but you're right, it is different and it's not right.

[00:07:45]>> Yeah, I mean, is there I mean, I know this is probably a very simple question which has a very complicated answer, but I mean, how would you approach fixing it or at least getting it into line with with with cuz I know that, you know, private companies waste money as well.

[00:07:58]The bigger they are, probably the harder it is to track everything down. But what could you do?

[00:08:04]What they don't What don't they do they should be doing?

[00:08:07]>> Well, a lot of it is culture. I mean, there is a a a line in reports there about leadership failures. But the culture of leaders within the civil service is extremely important. You know, you and I have I'm sure talked previously about the time that they waste on stuff generally called woke. Now, it's important that we're kind to one another, that nobody's judged at work for their identity and all the rest of it. It's absolutely vital. It's they should be a professional working environment, but one doesn't really need to go much beyond insisting on a professional working environment. And yet they spend days doing training on on these things. What really needs to happen is a culture that absolutely values every penny which has been taken by taxpayers from taxpayers by force, to value every single penny and to know that taking that money is denying the taxpayer the opportunity to spend it for themselves, and having a culture which absolutely values where it goes, which absolutely rejects fraud and error, and which doesn't accept as a norm that millions and even billions of pounds get wasted. So, that's the first point, culture and leadership. Um the second point, I'm afraid, is that the government and the National Audit Office needs to start looking at how the private sector would deal with these problems and adopt some of those um some of those techniques. So, I'm afraid sometimes people might need to be sacked or moved aside or or or or whatever.

[00:09:28]There's not much point trying to recover the money from people within the civil service because the sums are too large.

[00:09:33]So, yeah, it's time for a real rethink.

[00:09:36]There is something called the effective governance forum who I've occasionally worked with and they try to bring the techniques of the private sector to bear on government. It will be interesting to see what they say.

[00:09:46]>> Yeah, indeed. Um, we've been talking about Angela Rayner this morning. Um, she's now housing secretary again. Um, she's got quite a few houses which is all good. I don't know whether she's sorted out her council tax stroke um, stamp duty problem. Again, somebody who seems to be taking an awfully long time to settle it. You know, if I if I do something wrong and HMRC find out, you know, they usually down on me, you know, within about 2 days. You haven't paid them in 3 days, you know, you pay them an absolute fortune. Um, but she apparently promised a million and a half homes in 5 years when they first came in. Uh, which works out 824 new homes completed per day, says Vincent. That's 34 houses an hour, which even for her is kind of ambitious, isn't it?

[00:10:27]>> Yeah, I did see that Angela Rayner's tax affairs have now been settled. So, I mean that is something from which, you know, most of us would be able to move on. Um, but yeah, I mean they will fail on housing and it's very much the public's detriment.

[00:10:40]Um, you know, it it it we are desperately in need of housing particularly for the young.

[00:10:44]Family formation is collapsing in our country because people can't afford homes. Forgive me, the hay fever's got me.

[00:10:51]>> No, that's all right. I I've been suffering from it massively this year as as well. I don't know what's going on this year, but for some reason cuz I had I had no hay fever since I was about 12 or something. But this year, I can't stop getting it.

[00:11:02]>> We grow into it, my wife a GP was telling me. I kept saying I've got I've got a summer cold and she kept saying no, you've you've grown into hay fever.

[00:11:10]But it's one of those things.

[00:11:11]>> Uh, absolutely right. Um, and um, we've been talking as well about fridge manufacturers because we've just been you know, we're counting fridges. I've been asked by producers to ask every guest we've got on today, what what what make is your fridge?

[00:11:24]>> I think it's a John Lewis special to be honest. I'd have to go and check. I wish I'd known you were going to ask. But it is not a Smeg. The name is too silly.

[00:11:31]>> It is too silly, absolutely right. So, I mean as far as um, the whole business of government goes, I'm not particularly optimistic this one's going to be any better than the last one, to be honest.

[00:11:41]But, I wanted to ask you before I let you go about CPAC cuz we saw you down at CPAC last week down in in Greenwich.

[00:11:47]What did you make of it all and and what did you what did you take from it?

[00:11:50]>> Well, I thought the session on digital tyranny was really excellent. I enjoyed >> [laughter] >> being there and I enjoyed what Freddy knew had to say. I think it's really important that people think carefully about what's coming, which is total surveillance in combination with AI.

[00:12:07]Decisions being taken by AI. People might be under suspicion because they've been monitored automatically and decisions about who they are and what they're trying to do taken automatically. It's really serious. You know, have a look at Big Brother Watch to see what's coming.

[00:12:19]>> Yeah.

[00:12:20]>> Well, I think it's really important that the center right is reinvigorating itself and it's really important that that was a cross-party event. You know, Nigel Farage was there and conservative figures like Jacob Rees-Mogg and Liz Truss, of course, who initiated it. So, it's that's really important that people are coming together, but we do have to inspire people to get involved. We we really need a movement which changes the direction of this country. You know, Labour kind of won through a massive shrug of indifference from the nation.

[00:12:48]That that's not going to get us through the days which lie ahead. So, it's it's for political leaders to create a bit of inspiration for the public and we need to encourage the public to to get involved and to demand something different from their politicians. I think CPAC's part of that process. We've got a long way to go.

[00:13:03]>> Yeah, indeed. Steve, good to see you.

[00:13:05]Thank you very much indeed. Steve Baker there reporting into us from his new position as as a think tank. He's running a think tank, of course, himself.