Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg Speaks to John Pienaar on the Queen's Speech and More

The Leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees Mogg, has told Times Radio the government will bring forward a funding plan for adult social care "by the end of the year".

Speaking to John Pienaar live in the studio, Mr Rees Mogg said: "There has essentially been a period of year where policy development of that kind has not been practical because the energy, the effort, has been on dealing with the pandemic. But the Queen's Speech did refer to social care, and the Health and Social Care Bill will deal with integrating health and social care better so the two work together more effectively. But yes, the government has committed to bringing forward a detailed funding plan as well... the by the end of the year."

And the Leader of the House also effectively confirmed the inquiry into the government's handing of the pandemic would happen in this session of parliament:

John Pienaar: "The Prime Minister mentioned in the course of his, I think a reply to Keir Starmer, that there would be an inquiry into the handling of the COVID pandemic in the course of this session, which came, I think, as news to most of us and quite a quite a big commitment."

Jacob Rees Mogg: "It's always been obvious that there would have to be an inquiry into COVID, into what has happened. What has been handled well, what could have been handled better, what the preparedness was for a pandemic. It's obvious that that would happen. It will happen at a point when there is the ability to do it when the pandemic is behind us rather than when dealing with a pandemic is taking up most of the political energy of the nation."

And the minster also appeared to disagree with Boris Johnson who said it would be a "mistake" to go back to austerity after the pandemic, and defended the cuts to public spending over the last decade:

Jacob Rees Mogg: "No, I think austerity was absolutely essential. The country had run out of money effectively by 2010, and that if we hadn't had austerity we wouldn't have been able to have the response to the pandemic that we have had, that has kept the structures of the economy going. The furlough scheme, the business bailout loans, all of that have been affordable because of the fiscal base that we had a year ago. If we had been running deficits of 150 billion pounds a year from 2010 through to 2020 it's inconceivable that we could have done that, even if they'd been a little bit lower. So fiscal responsibility has allowed us to respond to the pandemic, has allowed us to protect the structures of the economy and jobs, and now it's about - to use the slogan - 'building back better', to ensure that people are given more opportunities and better opportunities."