BROWN UNDER FIRE OVER SECRET CUTS
GORDON BROWN’S longstanding bid to downplay the need for swingeing spending cuts was finally exposed yesterday, after leaked documents revealed that his officials had been planning large reductions for many months.
The leaked Treasury plans – which were dated just before the Budget and passed on to the Tories – revealed that the government was already forecasting real terms cuts to departmental budgets of 9.3 per cent by 2013-2014.
None of these predictions were made public at the Budget or in Parliament, and until this week the Prime Minister had repeatedly denied any plans to reduce any kind of department expenditure.
In a further blow to the government’s credibility, the figures show that total government spending is still set to rise – but all of the increase will be diverted into the welfare budget and go towards paying interest on the exploding government debt. Interest payments will jump by 55 per cent next year and by another 22.8 per cent in 2011-12.
According to the leaked documents, departmental spending is set to fall by 0.8 per cent in 2010-11, four per cent in 2011-12, 1.8 per cent in 2012-13 and three per cent in 2013-2014.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said that the planned cuts would be the tightest squeeze in spending on public services since the UK was forced to negotiate its spending plans with the International Monetary Fund in the late 1970s.
The Treasury forecasts that social security bills will surge to a crippling £193.4bn by 2013-14 while the interest paid on UK debt will jump to £63.7bn from £27.2bn this fiscal year. Those two items of spending are not included in departmental budgets.
Conservative leader David Cameron emphasised yesterday that the leaked tables reveal that the government is also planning to cut capital expenditure – that is spending on schools, hospitals, roads and other capital projects – over the same period.
“Let me make it clear: they are not wrong to be planning cuts but they are wrong to try to cover up their plans for cuts. This is about honesty, it is about trust. This is about not taking people for fools,” he said.
The IFS added if the government wished to avoid real cuts in departmental spending, then it would need to implement tax increases or welfare cuts equivalent to 2.1 per cent of national income or £29bn in today’s terms.
A Treasury spokeswoman said yesterday that there would be an independent investigation into the leak of the documents to the Conservatives.