By David Williams
27 April 2010
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has criticised all three major parties for failing to come clean on the full extent of public spending cuts that are being planned for the next Parliament.
Director Robert Chote told a pre-election briefing today that balancing the public finances will be ‘the defining policy task for the next government’.
He added: ‘For voters to be able to make an informed choice, the parties need to explain clearly how they would go about achieving it. Unfortunately they have not… all three have been particularly vague about their plans for public spending.
‘It’s understandable that they’re not spelling out the full gory details but it would be better for the voters if they did.’
Chote added that much of the blame for this lies with the government, which has held off a Spending Review until after the election.
IFS data released today shows that Labour has yet to announce where 86.9% of its proposed £50.8bn spending reductions over the next Parliament will be found.
For the Conservatives, 82.3% of the party’s proposed £59.4bn cuts have not yet been announced.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats, whose manifesto includes some detailed costings for tax and spending plans, have still to identify 74.1% of their £46.5bn planned savings.
As the three parties are promising to protect different areas of public spending, this would mean a 21.7% cut in budgets that have not been ring-fenced under the Conservatives over the next Parliament. The equivalent figure for the LibDems is 12.1%, and 22.9% for Labour.
Labour’s planned spending cuts should save twice as much revenue as their proposed tax increases would raise, according to their own pre-election pledges, the IFS figures show. For the Liberal Democrats, the ratio is 2.5:1, while the Conservatives are aiming for spending cuts worth four times what they plan to raise in higher taxes.
However, Chote pointed out that in 1993, the then Conservative government’s efforts to cut the deficit consisted of equal levels of spending cuts and tax rises.
‘This may suggest that all the parties are being overambitious in the extent to which they expect public spending to take the strain… and that the next government will rely more on tax rises and welfare cuts than any of the parties are willing to admit to at the moment.’
27 April 2010
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has criticised all three major parties for failing to come clean on the full extent of public spending cuts that are being planned for the next Parliament.
Director Robert Chote told a pre-election briefing today that balancing the public finances will be ‘the defining policy task for the next government’.
He added: ‘For voters to be able to make an informed choice, the parties need to explain clearly how they would go about achieving it. Unfortunately they have not… all three have been particularly vague about their plans for public spending.
‘It’s understandable that they’re not spelling out the full gory details but it would be better for the voters if they did.’
Chote added that much of the blame for this lies with the government, which has held off a Spending Review until after the election.
IFS data released today shows that Labour has yet to announce where 86.9% of its proposed £50.8bn spending reductions over the next Parliament will be found.
For the Conservatives, 82.3% of the party’s proposed £59.4bn cuts have not yet been announced.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats, whose manifesto includes some detailed costings for tax and spending plans, have still to identify 74.1% of their £46.5bn planned savings.
As the three parties are promising to protect different areas of public spending, this would mean a 21.7% cut in budgets that have not been ring-fenced under the Conservatives over the next Parliament. The equivalent figure for the LibDems is 12.1%, and 22.9% for Labour.
Labour’s planned spending cuts should save twice as much revenue as their proposed tax increases would raise, according to their own pre-election pledges, the IFS figures show. For the Liberal Democrats, the ratio is 2.5:1, while the Conservatives are aiming for spending cuts worth four times what they plan to raise in higher taxes.
However, Chote pointed out that in 1993, the then Conservative government’s efforts to cut the deficit consisted of equal levels of spending cuts and tax rises.
‘This may suggest that all the parties are being overambitious in the extent to which they expect public spending to take the strain… and that the next government will rely more on tax rises and welfare cuts than any of the parties are willing to admit to at the moment.’
