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Further cuts to government spending to make the sums add up are damaging Britain’s economy - IPPR

Reacting to the Government’s announcement in the Budget that government departments will face further tough spending cuts in order to meet the deficit reduction plan set out in last November’s Autumn Statement, IPPR says this will damage vital public services while not boosting the economy.

Catherine Colebrook, IPPR’s Chief Economist, said:

“The announcements on spending mean it will be even harder to maintain decent public services.

“The Chancellor could have taken a different route by borrowing more to offset lower than expected revenue from taxes, particularly as the cost of borrowing is so low. This approach would allow him to boost the economy which would help to pay for the services we as a country want.

“A truly long-term economic plan would be much more focused on boosting our economic performance across the board. Stronger, more resilient tax revenues would be a side-effect of such an approach. So far, we have very little evidence that the Chancellor’s strategy of cutting to boost growth is working.”

Contact:

Sofie Jenkinson, s.jenkinson@ippr.org, 07981 023031
Lester Holloway, l.holloway@ippr.org, 07585 772 633

Notes to Editors:

Our report for the autumn spending review "The chancellor’s choices: How to make the spending review as progressive as possible while still delivering a surplus" shows how the chancellor could make the forthcoming spending review as progressive as possible – while keeping his promises to reach a surplus by 2019/20 and to avoid rises in national insurance, income tax or VAT. See: http://www.ippr.org/publications/the-chancellors-choices

Catherine Colebrook will be commentating on the budget. Her biography can be found here.

She wrote today about the challenges facing George Osborne in The Times Red Box blog. See:

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/redbox/topic/budget/osborne-has-no-easy-way-to-keep-his-deficit-promise

She also wrote how the Chancellor can make his sums add up here in Public Finance. See:

http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/opinion/2016/03/budgeting-missing-billions-how-will-chancellor-make-sums-add

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