By Richard Johnstone in Glasgow | 16 September 2013
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has said he would support continuing to ring-fence spending on both the NHS and schools over the five years to the end of the next parliament in 2020.
Speaking in a question and answer question at the Liberal Democrat party conference, Clegg said maintaining spending on these two areas in real-terms had protected services, and should be extended beyond the next election. He said that he expected the structural deficit to be closed during the next parliament, but there would be decisions to take about spending priorities as overall reductions were taking place.
‘Just because you’re doing less doesn’t mean you can’t have different policies on what we spend on public services,’ he told delegates.
Clegg said he had intervened directly after the 2010 general election, as the initial decision was being made to protect NHS spending, to insist that the same protection was given to the schools budget.
The ring-fencing of these two areas of public spending has proved controversial, with the Treasury select committee among those warning that opting to protect some budgets could lead to ‘allocative problems across government’.
However, Clegg announced today that he would support the protection continuing beyond when the government has closed the structural deficit, which is currently expected in 2018.
‘We’ve done that from 2010 and 2015, and my personal view is that we should do that again from 2015 to 2020, and make sure that, as we continue to make savings and we clear the deficit in 2018, we won’t make savings in the schools budgets and the NHS budget.’