Chancellor Rishi Sunak while warning that the economic consequences of Covid-19 pandemic have just begun, announced the government's 2020 Spending Review (SR20), outlining a number of key insights into how public funds will be spent over the next year from April 2021. Sunak warned that government borrowing will continue to be at its highest peacetime levels over the coming years, stating that tough decisions had to be made on where to cut spending. During his speech in the House of Commons, the Chancellor said: Today's Spending Review delivers on the priorities of the British people. Our health emergency is not yet over. And our economic emergency has only just begun.
So our immediate priority is to protect people's lives and livelihoods. The Spending Review also delivers stronger public services. Paying for new hospitals, better schools and safer streets. And it delivers a once-in-a-generation investment in infrastructure. Creating jobs, growing the economy, increasing pride in the places we call home. Sunak didn't provide much detail in his speech about how money will be allocated for digital, technology and data projects, but upon closer inspection of the official Spending Review documents, there are some key announcements that are worth highlighting.
SR20 outlines the government's ambition to modernise and reform the Civil Service and improve outcomes in public services, including £33 million to enable the government to provide the public with better, more personalised public services; £32 million to develop a consistent way of signing into government services online; £30 million for the Infrastructure and Projects Authority to reform project delivery capability across government; £1.7 million to establish an evaluation task force to improve knowledge of what works. The Cabinet Office will get £4.1 million to create simpler and more flexible procurement rules, and £16 million seed funding for the Border and Protocol Delivery Group to develop a Single Trade Window.
SR20 will invest in clean energy technologies, aiming to build on the UK's strengths and venture into new industries. This includes £1 billion for a Carbon Capture and Storage Infrastructure Fund, and additional investment in low hydrogen carbon production, offshore wind, and nuclear power. The total package to support a "green industrial revolution" stands at £12 billion.
Funds have been allocated to a defence modernisation programme, which includes £6.6 billion of R&D funding for areas such as artificial intelligence, future combat air power and other "battle-winning technologies". Pound 81 million of R&D funding will be provided between 2021-22 to launch a programme of investment in low and zero emission transport technologies. To support the electric vehicle manufacturing industry, the government will spend nearly £500 million in the next four years for the development and mass-scale production of electric vehicle batteries and associated EV supply chain.
£559 million to support the modernisation of technology across the health and care system. SR20 outlines £600 million to fix outdated government IT to ensure core systems are secure and can support better administration. This includes new funding of £268m in HMRC, £232 million in the Home Office, £40 million in the Ministry of Justice and £64 million in the Department for Education to bring technology up to date. The government hopes that these funds will reduce the risk of failures, improve efficiency and ultimately means a better service for the public.
The government wants to position the UK as a global leader in science and innovation and will invest £15 billion overall in R&D in 2021-22. SR20 also sees £375 million investment in the National Skills Fund in 2021-22. Pound 50.7 million for business support programmes to improve SME productivity through leadership, management and technology adoption.
