IFS: UK Faces Toughest Public Spending Cuts

Government spending cuts set out for after the general election are the toughest out of 32 advanced economies, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

Speaking in December's Autumn Statement, Chancellor George Osborne said Whitehall departments faced real-terms cuts of £51.4bn (14.1%) between 2015-19.

That figure is on top of £38.2bn (9.5%) of cuts over the past five years.

In its annual Green Budget report, the IFS said the planned "fiscal consolidation" was the largest out of 32 advanced worldwide economies.

IFS director Paul Johnson said UK public finances had a "long way to go" and accused Mr Osborne of failing to deliver on deficit reduction plans.

"He deliberately allowed the forecast deficit to rise as growth undershot in the early years of the Parliament," said Mr Johnson.

"He has not cut spending in real terms as much as planned, as inflation has undershot. And he has cut departmental investment spending by only half as much as he originally planned.

"One result is that he or his successor will still have a lot of fiscal work to do over the course of the next Parliament.

"The public finances have a long way to go before they finally recover from the effects of the financial crisis."

Plans set out by the Chancellor in 2010 implied real-terms cuts of 10.6% to departmental spending by the end of this financial year, but even by the end of next year, savings are not expected to have passed 9.5%.

The IFS's Carl Emmerson said current plans implied spending would hit its lowest level as a share of GDP since at least 1948.

However, in a more positive assessment, the IFS and collaborators Oxford Economic calculated that the cuts could be less harsh if the economy grows as they predict.

They forecast that the oil price slump will mean 3% UK growth in 2015, continuing at a "solid pace" over the longer term.

Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls said the current plans put public services at risk and called for a "balanced and fair way to get the deficit down".

"Labour will make sensible spending cuts in non-protected areas, but we will also reverse David Cameron's £3bn tax cut for the top 1% of earners," he said.

But Conservative Treasury minister Andrea Leadsom said the reductions to departmental spending would be manageable.

She told the BBC’s World At One programme: "What we are seeking to do is sort out our economy via reductions in spending.

"Those reductions to real departmental spending would take us back to levels last seen in 2002/03, when Gordon Brown was in office and Ed Miliband was in government as well - and those were not times of great austerity."