Select committee: Treasury Committee
Recommendation 16
Eighth Report: Economic impact of coronavirus: the challenges of recovery
Published 11 Sep 2020
Paragraph 133
Addressed to HM Treasury
Treasury Committee Economic impact of coronavirus All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
In order to prevent “levelling up” becoming an empty slogan, the Government should produce a strategy underpinning it that defines clear objectives and includes the indicators it will use to gauge success at the next fiscal event. The Government needs to clarify whether it is planning to close the productivity gap, the income gap, the gap in health outcomes, the gap in educational outcomes or all of these. It also needs to define the strategies it will use to close different imbalances: strategies to close productivity gaps may well be different to those aimed to close income gaps or those gaps in health outcomes.
From: Treasury Committee, Eighth Report: Economic impact of coronavirus: the challenges of recovery (HC 271), paragraph 133, 11 September 2020
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 20 November 2020 (deadline 11 November 2020).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Treasury's response sets out the support measures and positions it has taken on the Committee's recommendations, accepting some points, declining others and deferring several to later announcements.
- On recapitalising SMEs, the government has considered proposals including contingent tax liabilities and student loan type structures, but remains "of the view that accredited lenders, not the government, are best placed" to support borrowers repaying government-guaranteed loans.
- On the OBR and levelling up, the government points to the OBR's "clearly defined mandate" and to past reviews recommending "caution" about expanding it, rather than proposing a change.
- On a roadmap to fiscal sustainability, the government will set out further details, including a revised fiscal framework, "in due course, as the economic and fiscal outlook becomes clearer".
- On updating its COVID-19 distributional analysis, the government has "taken note and will consider doing so at an appropriate point", citing difficulties producing it to the same quality across wider characteristics.