Response to interpellation 2025/26:151 on increased appropriations to the Government Offices
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerned funding increases for the Government Offices. M argues that the increases are necessary to maintain robust government work, meet new security requirements following Nato membership, and implement a high pace of reform within crime policy and migration 1 2 3. M emphasizes that resources are required to govern and lead agencies such as the defense and the justice system 2 3. S criticizes the increase of 2.3 billion SEK as disproportionate while municipalities and regions are forced to make savings 4. S believes that the government lacks transparency and credibility as they do not report in detail what the money is used for 4 5 6.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Finansministern Elisabeth Svantesson (M)
Mr. Speaker! I shall now answer an interpellation from a diligent and very competent member who writes interpellations in a very good way.
Eva Lindh has asked the Prime Minister how he justifies the increase in appropriations to the Government Offices during the current parliamentary term and whether he intends to take any measures to curb the cost development and demonstrate restraint. The interpellation has been handed over to me.
The Government Offices' task is to prepare matters for the government and assist the ministers in their work. The Government Offices shall be an efficient and knowledgeable support for the government in the task of governing the country and implementing its policies.
Both the deteriorated security situation with war in our immediate vicinity and Sweden's membership in Nato entail new tasks and place new demands on the Government Offices' work, not least regarding the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. It requires strengthened preparedness, strengthened security work, and strengthened coordination work.
All requests for increased appropriations to the Government Offices during the mandate period are reported in the budget bills and are assessed as necessary to maintain a robust and efficient government work.
The Government wants a stronger and more proactive Sweden. By providing the Government Offices with the right conditions, we can implement important reforms, meet new security requirements, and create stability that benefits the entire society.
Eva Lindh (S)
Mr. Speaker! The large budget increases for the Government Offices continue. Between 2022 and 2026, the appropriations increase by around 2.3 billion kronor. This corresponds to almost 30 percent of the total appropriation.
This is happening at the same time as municipalities and regions are forced into heavy savings and are having a tough time. At that time, the government chooses to significantly increase its own resources. It is very difficult to understand how the government can justify such a prioritization in an economic situation where welfare is being pressed hard, staff are being laid off and the quality risks being worsened.
The government refers to increased security requirements and general cost developments. Increased security requirements are naturally an important aspect, but they do not explain an increase of this magnitude. It is rather, I say, about a government that sets different requirements for itself than for the rest of the public sector.
The government has not, during this entire mandate period, been able to credibly justify the large increases in the appropriations that it has proposed. The appropriation is not at a reasonable level.
At the beginning, it was stated that the increase was needed due to the Swedish EU Presidency. One could imagine that was reasonable, as it did cost a little. But when it was finally completed, the appropriation did not decrease but continued to remain at a high level.
My point is: When the government demands restraint from municipalities, regions, state authorities, and some people, and at the same time allows its own expenditures to grow significantly, a clear trust gap arises in my world. It is not just about crowns and öre. It is about leadership. It is about credibility.
I asked some questions to Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson: how the Prime Minister justifies the large increases in appropriations during the mandate period, whether the Prime Minister thinks it is reasonable that the Government Offices increase their costs by nearly 30 percent while welfare is forced into savings, and whether the Prime Minister intends to take any measures to dampen the cost development within the Government Offices and show the same restraint that the government demands of others.
The Prime Minister is not here to answer my questions. But the Finance Minister is standing here, and I actually hear no answers. The Government Offices should be efficient, she says. When the government talks about efficiency in other areas, it usually means: Do more with fewer resources! When it comes to the government's own area of responsibility, the Government Offices, it seems to be the opposite.
The Minister for Finance also answers that the deteriorated security situation and Sweden's membership in Nato entail new tasks. What does this cost? Not once has the government been able to report what it means in a concrete and more detailed way than these vague answers. That answer, I believe, is not only something I but all voters are entitled to. How has the Government Offices been allowed to swell so much?
Finansministern Elisabeth Svantesson (M)
Mr. Speaker! I thank Eva Lindh for a very good interpellation.
What I share with the member is the awareness of the importance of using every tax krona in the right way and not collecting more tax or using more money than is needed. Therefore, this question is not particularly difficult for me.
That we now have a larger government offices is due to the fact that the previous government left behind a Sweden in decay regarding safety – children shooting children, gang shootings, and an enormous insecurity. We are now strengthening the justice system – the courts, the Prosecution Authority, the police, and so on. Above all, we ensure that the penalties are toughened. All that work, where different parts of the authorities are growing very significantly – we have, for example, doubled the defense appropriations in just four years – requires a counterpart, both when it comes to producing investigations and when it comes to leading and governing. Crime added to the security situation costs money.
Sweden's membership in Nato has also truly placed new demands on the Government Offices. Regardless of who is Prime Minister or Finance Minister, counterparts in different parts of the Government Offices are needed so that we can live up to what we are to do as a Nato member.
Madam Speaker! I think the question is important; it is central. For me, it is no more difficult than that it looks like this because of a low pace of reform earlier. It is enormously high now so that we can get Sweden in order and at the same time be able to meet the security policy situation, and it costs money.
It costs money to build a criminal justice system. It costs money to have more police. It also costs money to have counterparts, to be able to manage and lead, and to ensure that the assignments in the Government Offices are both given and followed up.
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! I also burn for us to use the tax funds that people pay effectively. We share exactly that opinion. But then I think that one should also be able to account for what the 2.3 billion have been used for. A 30-percent increase is a lot of money. It is a very large increase. Not once has the government been able to account for what it means, other than through general, flowery explanations.
I expect that there will be a detailed account when I want to see it. Otherwise, people, for example me, can start interpreting what is happening in the Government Offices a bit like some ministers interpret expenditures that municipalities and regions have – that a lot more communicators or something else have been hired – and it would be a shame if the Government Offices have actually been upgraded with the much-needed things that the Finance Minister indicates.
The Minister for Finance also says that by giving the Government Offices the right conditions, they can carry out important reforms. But the government is not prepared to give the right conditions to others, such as regions and municipalities. Therefore, this feels a bit like double standards.
Above all, this is also about the lack of transparency for me. Who can say whether it is correctly budgeted or not when no one, in any case not outside the Government Offices, knows what is included in the increased appropriation of 2.3 billion?
Time and again, we Social Democrats have written this in statements regarding the expenditure area where this is included, but we have not received an answer. I therefore do not think it is more than reasonable that we can get it.
Besides transparency, it is also about the fact for me that the government demands restraint from others but at the same time lets their own costs increase significantly. What is said to others does not become credible if one also cannot specify what the money has been spent on.
Again: Is there a detailed list of what is included in the 2.3 billion and the 30 percent increase of the appropriation during the mandate period in question?
Finansministern Elisabeth Svantesson (M)
Madam Speaker! Briefly, the government is investing approximately 300 billion this year – I believe it is 297, if I am to be exact – in Sweden's municipalities and regions in targeted and general government grants. It is an enormous amount of money and constitutes the largest combined budget item in the budget. Despite the fact that municipalities and regions have their own taxing responsibility, it is obvious for us to support them – so it was said.
Eva Lindh wants to see a list. Among other things, there will be a list of propositions – maybe it has already arrived? – with approximately 200 planned propositions during the spring alone. We have had 500 propositions. What is a proposition, one might wonder if one watches the debate and does not engage in politics every day. They are legislative proposals. Then it is not just about many new laws coming, but many of them are also very far-reaching.
It is about, among other things, increased penalties, so that for once we can imprison those who rape and assault women and carry out deportations. We have an enormous pace regarding increased penalties and much else within criminal policy. But it costs money to produce investigations and expand.
As I said, there is a counterparty, and this counterparty must be the Government Offices.
In conclusion, I state that we have doubled the defense appropriations in just a few years. We have struck hard against crime and done what Eva Lindh and her party should have done a long time ago.
We are carrying out a paradigm shift in both crime policy and migration policy. All of this requires resources, but it will also lead to a great deal of positive outcomes. It will lead to many new jobs within the defense sector and the defense industry. It will lead to many new jobs now that the construction of prisons is beginning. It will also lead to many jobs when more railways are to be laid and roads are to be built and repaired. All of this creates a dynamic. Public investments of 6 percent this year will make Sweden significantly safer and more secure, which is the path we are taking. But Sweden will also become stronger and wealthier.
Eva Lindh (S)
Madam Speaker! I hear what the Minister for Finance says, but I do not agree with all parts of her description. She brings up much that concerns the justice area. A good deal of the increased penalties and changes that have been made were already on the table. The S-led government had prepared them, and therefore it was perhaps not required that increased appropriations be claimed.
I continue to reflect on this, because I do not think the answers I have received in the debate explain the 30 percent increase in the appropriation to the Government Offices. I must continue to search.
I want to include the thought that the Minister for Finance also raises, that we must be careful with the tax money we are responsible for and distribute it correctly. It sounds completely unreasonable that the Government Offices have been allowed to swell by as much as 2.3 billion SEK.
ANDRE VICE TALMANNEN
Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson yields her final speech in the debate.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.