Experts Say Government Plans For Public Spending Cuts Are "Laughable"

The "fictional" cuts to public spending that underpinned Jeremy Hunt's Spring Budget mean voters are not getting a true picture of the choices facing the next Government, experts have said.

Now that the dust has settled on this week's Spring Budget, one of the major questions facing the Rishi Sunak Government is how its plans to reduce public spending stack up.

It is a question facing Labour leader Keir Starmer and Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, too, as opinion polls continue to suggest it is they who will inherit these implied cuts after the next general election.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the Government would reduce National Insurance contributions by a further two per cent.

Conservative strategists hope that tax cuts will improve their chances of avoiding defeat to the Labour Party when that election comes around, which is currently expected to be in the Autumn.

But within hours of Hunt finishing his speech, attention turned away from the headline Budget announcements to what could be found in small print — namely, how ministers planned to actually fund their pre-election tax cuts.

That's because the Government revealed that it would raise the money it needs by reducing day-to-day spending of unprotected departments by around 3.3 per cent every year over the course of the next Parliament; projected cuts to the public sector totalling around £19bn.

By unprotected departments we mean those to which the Government has not already made funding commitments; these include the Home Office, justice and local government. Protected departments include the NHS, defence and education. 

According to analysis by the Resolution Foundation, this implied fall in