Spending review: Responses
All the responses to the spending review in one place.
Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT union
“These cuts represent the most brutal assault on public services, jobs and living standards since the 1930’s and show that the ConDem government are prepared to force working people to carry the can for an economic crisis cooked up in the boardrooms and on the trading floors. This is all-out class war with its roots firmly planted in the playing fields of Eton.
“While the bankers, spivs and speculators are preparing for a return to mega-bonuses this Christmas, for the vast majority of British people this spending review means attacks on living standards, jobs and the public services we rely on. The idea that this announcement is about ‘sharing the burden’ is a sick joke and coming from a Government of millionaire public schoolboys is an insult to the people who make this country tick and who are in the front line of this cuts assault.
“The massive increase in rail fares will drive people off the trains and onto the roads and it looks like the profits of the private rail companies will be ring fenced while upgrades are kicked into the long grass, forcing passengers to pay through the nose to travel on creaking, overcrowded services.
“We will need community protests and combined and co-ordinated action to fend off these cuts and we should look across the Channel to the kind of resistance being mobilised by the French trade unions, which enjoys overwhelming public support, as an example of how to repel austerity cuts and attacks on standards of living.”
Professor Marshall Stoneham, president of the Institute of Physics (IOP)
“It is good news for UK science that the government recognises the value of a strong scientific research base to the UK economy which will be complemented by investment in an elite network of research and development intensive technology and innovation centres.
“Make no mistake: even with a flat cash settlement the next few years will be challenging ones. The science community will need to work very hard to maintain the excellence of our research, retain the best young researchers and avoid any damage to our international reputation in a world where many other countries are increasing their investment in research.
“But we have to be realistic. In our current financial situation, all sectors of society will have to face some sacrifices, and the science community accepts that it cannot be immune.
“Over many years, UK researchers have proved that they can deliver outstanding results with relatively limited resources. I am confident that we will have the skill and determination to weather the next few years, and to contribute to the re-growth of our economy. In the longer term, I hope we will see a return to a steady increase in the level of funding for research, both by the public and the private sectors.
“It will be some time before we know the detailed impact of this settlement for science. We will continue to watch the situation closely, and to make the case for protecting vital areas of the UK’s research base.”
Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform
“As suspected, the Ministry of Justice has been one of the most prominent victims of the spending review, with cuts of almost 28 per cent from its current budget.
“Even with some £1.3bn earmarked for maintaining the ageing prison estate, such cuts will only be achieved by reducing the prison population and closing prisons. To that end, we welcome the announcement that plans for yet another super-sized prison are to be effectively abandoned.
“Nonetheless, we should be clear about the challenge the Ministry of Justice faces. Simply slashing jobs and opening the prison gates is not an option. That is particularly the case if probation budgets are similarly squeezed, as seems likely.
“The example of Canada in the 1990s proves instructive. The Canadian government reduced public spending by a fifth and as a result reduced the country’s prison population by 11 per cent. By reducing the unnecessary use of custody and investing in community interventions, the Canadian government both saved money and saw crime fall across the decade, with drops ranging from 23 per cent for assault and robbery to 43 per cent for homicide.
“In other words, there is an opportunity to strategically reduce prison numbers, while changing the way we respond to crime and people who commit offences. But if the Ministry of Justice approaches the next few years as a simple cost-cutting exercise, then that opportunity will be lost and the justice system will be left unable to cope and effectively crippled for the foreseeable future.”
Helen Longworth, acting director of UK Poverty for Oxfam
“Oxfam are pleased with the government’s commitment to invest more than £2 billion, so the Department for Work and Pensions can simplify the welfare system and made work pay. Forcing people to live below the bread-line should never be a tactic to encourage them back into employment and from our experience, most people who are stuck on benefits do want to work.
“One in five people in the UK live in poverty, because of political decisions governments have made. As we all rely on having a pension when we retire and a free health service, nobody should be denied the vital safety net that welfare provides. We need to stop blaming the poorest and look up to the richest in society to pay their share.
“The coalition government said their spending review would be fair, but we are still a long way from a fair society. Signs from local authority cuts announced so far are that once again the poorest people in the country are being made to pick up the bill. If the government wants to show their leadership in ‘fairness’ then they should impose a Robin Hood Tax on the banks that caused the financial crisis in the first place.”
Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison
“For CSR read Cuts Strangle Recovery. The Tories’ ideologically driven, no hope, no ideas, cuts agenda is poisoning the country’s chances of recovery, infecting the public sector and costing 425,000 jobs in the private sector.
“The much-trailed cuts come as no great surprise, but the scale is a devastating blow to workers and their families whose jobs are in the firing line.
“The Chancellor has tunnel vision, there are realistic alternatives that will get the country back on its feet. And make no mistake, there is no way that frontline services will escape his heavy-handed tactics.”
Stephen Robertson, director general of the British Retail Consortium
“These are serious plans to tackle the Budget deficit and will remove some of the uncertainty which was driving down consumer confidence. Beginning to deal with the deficit now is right. Delays would just store up more pain for later, risking increased borrowing costs, higher taxes and more job losses.
“But individual households and communities will continue to be cautious until the impact on their future prospects is clear. Retailers need the Government to communicate exactly how the cuts will be delivered as soon as possible so that they can make investment plans.
“It’s a tough judgment but the Government has achieved the right balance between public spending cuts and tax increases. The situation needs to be monitored carefully. There are testing times ahead. January’s VAT increase will have an impact on sales and we’re expecting a tough trading environment in the first quarter of 2011. The Government should avoid any further steps which might cause nervous consumers to take flight or deter businesses from taking on new staff.
“The BRC backs cuts but they must be applied in the right way. It is calling on the Government to measure the impact of each cut against four key tests it has devised to ensure the retail-led economic recovery is not undermined.”
Sally Hunt, general secretary of the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU)
“It is hard to see the rationale behind slashing college and university budgets when they generate massive economic growth for the country and when the alternative is more people on the dole and the state losing out on millions in tax revenues.
“We are appalled to learn that education maintenance allowances are at risk and funding for people who do not speak English is being abolished. The simple message here seems to be ‘don’t be poor’.
“It was interesting that George Osborne chose to start his CSR by saying that he did not wish to saddle our children with debts the government was not willing to pay. He clearly has not read last week’s Browne review of university funding.
“It’s no good the chancellor describing universities as the jewel in our economic crown and then following those warm words up with massive cuts. Every MP with a college or university in or near their constituency should be clear that the cuts will put those institutions at risk.”
Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC
“Right across government the Chancellor has announced eye-watering cuts that will have a desperate impact on communities, business and hard-pressed families. But he has not had the guts to spell out the detail, and instead tried to talk up a few crumbs of good news.
“Worst of all, to score a cheap party political point about Labour spending plans, he has loaded cuts on to benefits and welfare payments. Those who have not had a minister fighting their corner but who are most vulnerable to cuts have lost the most today. The poorest have become the victims of a political jape.
“But the biggest tragedy of all is that the spending review is likely to fail on its own terms. These cuts will depress the economy by causing a million job losses and undermining business and consumer confidence. There will be plenty of pain, but little to gain.”
Deborah Doane, director of the World Development Movement
“The experience of austerity measures imposed on developing countries should sound alarm bells for us all. These measures are not a new innovation; they were cooked up by Thatcher and Reagan in the 1980s and forced onto developing countries by the IMF and World Bank. The effects were devastating: inequality, poverty and injustice increased as public services and welfare spending were slashed.
“Recently, such policies have been completely discredited; even the World Bank and IMF held their hands up and said they got it wrong. Countries, like Malaysia and Vietnam, that resisted the austerity measures remained far less vulnerable than those that had to succumb to these failed economic prescriptions. If we don’t resist this illogical thinking, the outcome will lead to a truly broken Britain.
“A massive amount of public money has been poured into RBS which is investing in dirty oil, mining and coal projects. Contrast this to the miniscule £1 billion of public finance offered for a green investment bank – this is halved from previous proposals. This is throwing good money after bad, and will not generate the kind of investment needed to generate green jobs, green industry and a green economy in the UK. This is a short-sighted and wasted opportunity.
“Whilst it’s welcome that the government has recommitted to meeting its aid target, the only way that the government can claim it’s on track to meet its 0.7% aid budget and climate finance commitments is through some very dodgy accountancy tricks. The same money is being counted separately as ‘aid’ money and as ‘climate’ money – but it cannot buy medicine and flood barriers. And disgracefully, 70% of the UK’s climate finance is being provided as loans which will lock developing countries into unjust debt and poverty.
“Defence spending has been cut and it’s clear that the government is looking to plug the hole by raiding the already tiny international development budget. Aid is supposed to help provide health care and education to the poorest countries, not bolster the UK’s military operations.”
Matthew Sinclair, director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance
“It’s great news that the Government is going ahead with necessary spending cuts to get the deficit under control and that politicians are finally setting out clear plans to deal with the fiscal crisis. Many wasteful programmes are being cut and that will mean savings for taxpayers now and in the future. Unfortunately a number of measures that would save significant amounts of money while minimising the impact on services haven’t been taken, like a freeze in the International Development budget or pay cuts for the best paid public sector staff. Sensible and necessary cuts have been announced today but more can be done to deliver good value for hard pressed taxpayers.”
Alan Downey, head of public sector for KPMG
“The Chancellor has pulled off a very tricky balancing act. He has confirmed the government’s commitment to cut public expenditure by £83 billion over the next four years. At the same time he has managed to avoid making cuts in some of the areas where further reductions were widely expected. For example, there will be no further withdrawal of universal benefits from those on middle and high incomes, the elderly will continue to receive free eye tests, free prescriptions, free TV licences, free bus passes and the winter fuel allowance. There will also be significant investment in transport capital projects, adult apprenticeships, green technology and science.
“And although there will be big cuts in the budgets of some central governments departments, others have done relatively well, including Defence as well as Health and Schools, both of the which will receive a real terms increase.
“The biggest losers will be organisations in the devolved public sector. Funding for local government will be cut by 30% over the Spending Review period; and the budget for Business, Innovation and Skills will also decline by 30%. That inevitably means a very tough time for local councils, universities and further education colleges. We are seeing an unprecedented shift in the burden of paying for further and higher education, from the taxpayer to the student.”
Andy Atkins, Friends of the Earth’s executive director
“The Chancellor’s pledge for £200million to support low-carbon technologies and a new bank to help green industries get off the ground is good news – as is his clear commitment that it will be a bank not a mere fund – but it will need significantly more than the £1billion allocated to be effective.
“Slashing energy efficiency grants to some of the UK’s most vulnerable people will send a chill into many homes, while cutting £300million on buses will have a devastating impact on services that the poorest people rely on most.
“We’re pleased that the immediate threat to feed-in tariffs and the Renewable Heat Incentive has been fought off, but the Government must now work hard to mend investor confidence.”
Alison Garnham, chief executive of Child Poverty Action Group
“This is a worryingly short-sighted and profoundly unfair spending review that will almost certainly add to, rather than reduce, child poverty and puts the government dangerously on course to miss its own targets to end child poverty by 2020.
“It was good to hear the Chancellor say the Government remains committed to ending child poverty but there’s nothing today about how this will be done or how many children actually will be lifted out of poverty by 2015.
“Rather than saving money, the impact of these continued raids on the family budgets of the most vulnerable will mean higher public spending bills in the future as the costs of damaged life chances, social failure and economic underachievement mount up. We will all pay a price for leaving children in poverty.
“The additional £560 million funding for the child element of tax credits is welcome but represents only one-fifth of the £2.5 billion savings in Child Benefit and for many families this gain will be a small consolation and be dwarfed by the much bigger cuts to housing, out-of-work and disability benefits, totaling £18 billion.
“The Employment & Support Allowance change is especially worrying and unfair. People who have paid their national insurance contributions for many years are now being told that if they cannot work due to illness or an accident they may lose their benefit after a year.
“Given the Prime Minister’s commitments to being the most family-friendly country in Europe and to helping parents get into work, the reduction in help with childcare costs in tax credits is counter-productive and makes it harder for families with children get into work and make work pay.
“We’re pleased that there are no new proposals today to restrict Child Benefit further but disappointed that the controversial plans already announced are still on the table. This simple to understand and administer benefit has been incredibly effective at reaching the poorest children and helping to prevent poverty precisely because of recent investments in its value and its universal nature.”
Mike Hobday, head of policy at Macmillan Cancer Support
“Macmillan believes that one to one nursing support reduces NHS costs by giving patients high quality and better coordinated care. We are working with the Department of Health on some health economics to validate this model and we will continue to do so during the Cancer Reform Strategy refresh process.”
Ian Mulheirn, director of the SMF
“The government has made a fanfare of its plans to make work pay. But freezing Working Tax Credits and reducing financial support for childcare will see many low and middle income working parents substantially worse off at the end of each month. This doesn’t fit with the Government’s rhetoric. Working Tax Credit was introduced to make it more financially rewarding to return to work. For parents on modest incomes this will be a major blow to their incentives to work.”
Aaron Porter, president of the National Union of Students (NUS)
“This is a devastating blow to higher and further education that puts the future of colleges and universities at risk and will have repercussions for the future prospects of students and learners. This is a spending review that looks an entire generation in the eye and says ‘you’re on your own.’
“Government ministers from both parties keep telling us that the deficit must be reduced to avoid passing a poisoned legacy to the next generation, but now they are proposing to eliminate almost all funding for university education whilst simultaneously transferring the debt onto students.
“Ministers who themselves received their university education for free are now saying that the next generation will have to do without.”
Joe Korner, director of communications for The Stroke Association
“As a result of these cuts we are concerned about the huge financial pressure being put on local authority spending. The support services we run in the community which help people to fulfil their potential for recovery may be cut as a result of these changes. We were already seeing councils pull the funding for these services before today’s announcement. They are a lifeline for stroke survivors and their families and without them they will face extreme isolation and exclusion. While we welcome the extra £2billion that will be put towards social care and hope that it will be used to help maintain support for stroke survivors we have concerns that this is nowhere near enough to protect such valuable services.
“We are pleased that the science budget isn’t facing a big cut and that the Government is still committed to investing in the NHS. However we remain concerned that the NHS faces great financial strain to make the savings needed to help fill the demand made by our ageing population and challenges such as rising levels of obesity, both of which increase the likelihood of stroke. We hope that the changes to benefits won’t adversely affect stroke survivors and their carers.”
Mark Goodwin, director of external affairs at Rics
“The property and construction sector will certainly feel its share of the general pain, and when this sector hurts, the whole economy hurts more.
“The Government is gambling with the economy by reducing Communities and Local Government capital spending by 74% over the next four years. This will have a significant effect on housing supply, especially social housing, which is already at historically low levels. As well as reducing the number of affordable homes this could have a wider impact on the housing market where continued low supply will create affordability issues, particularly for first time buyers.
“This comes on top of a 60% reduction in spending on the construction and refurbishment of schools. Cuts like this risk endangering the hugely important construction sector – every £1 spent by the Government on building projects generates around £3 for the wider economy. Cutting construction spending will have serious negative impacts including long term unemployment, loss of skills and outdated infrastructure preventing economic growth.
“While welcoming both the new Green Deal scheme and the commitment to increased funding for renewable energy infrastructure, RICS believes plans for a Green Infrastructure Bank will need much more than the £1bn allocated in the CSR to be successful in leveraging the necessary private sector investment in the low carbon economy.
“The plans to tackle inefficiency in public sector asset management by creating two new vehicles for the estate in London and Bristol led by the Government Property Unit are welcome. But the really big savings are to be made in the bulk of the estate in the regions. Publication of asset registers should help get this moving.
“Everyone realises that big cuts are needed to reduce the deficit. The axe has been wielded, but next year’s Budget provides an opportunity to support innovation and growth by making fiscal adjustments that will have a big payback, such as cutting VAT on repair and refurbishment of buildings, supporting investment in carbon reduction measures, reinstating empty commercial property rate relief and changes to the tax system to support greater investment in residential property.”
Baroness Margaret Eaton, chairman of the Local Government Association
“This spending review will hit councils and the residents they serve very hard and will inevitably lead to cuts at the front line.
“These are some of the biggest cuts in the public sector and we have to be honest about their impact.
“Town halls will now face extremely tough choices about which services they can keep on running. These cuts will cause real pain and anxiety for millions of people who use the services councils provide, from keeping children safe to ensuring that streets are clean.
“Councils will do all they can to minimise the effect of these cuts and will build on their record of delivering new and better ways of doing things in order to keep public services running in these tough times. But savings on this scale are bound to hit services upon which people rely.
“The Government has responded positively, however, to some of the central arguments made by local government. The significant increase in funding for adult social care from Government and the NHS is good news and reflects something councils have been arguing for many years.
“There are also important moves towards much simpler funding mechanisms that will help councils do their job. The Government has eased burdens on local government, given us much greater freedoms and flexibilities over our budgets and taken a first step towards wider reform with councils in the vanguard of reforming the way the public sector operates.
“Town halls want to join up local public services to ensure we deliver the services residents demand and expect, but we can’t do it alone. Councils want to work with other areas of the public and voluntary sector must break down wasteful bureaucratic barriers.
“Ministers must move much faster to redraw the way public services are delivered so the people we serve come before the interests of the Whitehall machine.”
Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL)
“Schools and schooling are not divorced from society, so the cuts to public services will hit those who have least and increase the barriers to learning for disadvantaged children. This is no recipe for reducing the attainment gap.
“However, we congratulate the Secretary of State for Education on having successfully fought for investment in education in this tough spending review. It was a real achievement to have the schools budget ring-fenced and gain modest rises in funding for schools.
“This should end some of the wilder redundancy talk our members have been hearing.
“It is good to see that the Liberal Democrats have succeeded in getting the pupil premium agreed and funded. However, while we fully support the pupil premium in principle the devil will be in the detail of how it is allocated.
“We are pleased that Sure Start will continue and that the government is extending funding for pre-school children to free places for disadvantaged two year olds since investment in early years education is the most cost-effective way to help poorer children. But it will be pointless if the nursery and pre-school places are not guaranteed to be good quality play-based provision that meets the needs of these children and staffed by well-qualified adults.
“The cuts in central education services provided by local authorities could be hugely damaging as schools depend on services such as children’s mental health and behaviour support to help pupils with special needs. Without these services schools will not be able to raise these pupils’ attainment.
“It is deeply regrettable that the government has continued to ignore further education. It is hard to see how FE and sixth form colleges will be able to cope with an increased demand for places without any increase in funding. When the demand for skills is growing the government is risking cutting the life raft for young people who are in desperate need of high quality skills to become employable.
“We regret the cuts in the school building budget. We were not uncritical supporters of building schools for the future as it allowed money which should have been spent on children to go to consultants and be wasted on unnecessarily grandiose schemes. But some schools are frankly dangerous with unsecured asbestos and others are substandard – damp, inaccessible for pupils and staff with disabilities, too noisy, and lacking sufficient classroom space – and they need to be repaired and upgraded.”
Rhian Beynon, spokesperson for the End Child Poverty Campaign
“The compensating measures don’t go nearly far enough to stop this being a dark day for any family struggling to stay out of poverty, or deep in it already and fearing things will get worse still. With a Child Tax Credit increase worth just 58p more a week next year, the poorest children have less than the price of a loaf of bread to compensate.
“The cuts to benefits now total over £18 billion, with the main part focussed on cuts to support for families. Cuts to support for childcare costs and a freeze for Sure Start services will harm families too and make it harder for them to get and keep paid work.
“We accept the importance of reducing the deficit, but we don’t accept the approach chosen. Claims that the wealthiest carry the biggest burden and measured child poverty will not increase did not stand up to independent scrutiny in the emergency budget and we do not accept the claims to survive scrutiny this time either .The Spending Review will almost certainly increase child poverty and increase the economic costs faced by any society with high levels of poverty, inequality and social exclusion.
“The promise of fairness has not been met. While unprecedented cuts to essential support and services are rushed through, the review fails the challenge of saving the tens of billions lost on tax evasion and does not ask the wealthiest to make a full and fair tax contribution. A fairer ratio of cuts to tax rises along with a reduction timetable recognising the risks to jobs and growth in our fragile recovering economy would have met the fairness test. The resulting message is: ‘children must pay today to protect the wealthy tomorrow’.”
Ceri Goddard, chief executive of the Fawcett Society
“The Comprehensive Spending Review, like the previous emergency budget, hits women hardest. It is women who will be the main losers as jobs are cut, public services are rolled back and benefits are slashed.
“The cuts are so deep and will hit women so hard that they risk more than women’s financial security – they threaten hard fought progress we’ve made on women’s equality. The Chancellor’s plans undermine the status of women as equal partners with men in the world of work, home and society as a whole.
“Of the half a million public sector workers facing unemployment, more than two thirds will be women. This is because 65 per cent of public sector workers are women, and more women work in the low paid, low grade and insecure work most likely to be hit. This comes on top of the 1 million women already unemployed in the UK – last month, 75 per cent more women signed on to unemployment benefit than men.
“The £18 billion a year cuts to the welfare budget, as outlined today and in the recent emergency budget will also see women bear the brunt as benefits typically make up one fifth of women’s income as opposed to one tenth of men’s. Taking Housing Benefit as just one example – a million more women claim this than men, and many of these will be lone parents facing poverty.
“Targeting local government is tantamount to singling out women for the hit – 75 per cent of local government workers are women; cumulative cuts of 28 per cent in the budget for this sector will have a disastrous impact on women as both employees and service users.
“Rolling back public services hits women particularly hard not only because they tend to use services more frequently and more intensively then men, but also because of their sizable caring responsibilities. Slashing at this aspect of the welfare state does more than reduce the support many women rely on, it also increases the burden they carry – many women with caring responsibilities for children and elderly relatives will find it harder to manage as the help they’ve thus far relied on dries up.
“The measures unveiled today seem, as is becoming a theme of the Coalition Government, to see women’s services and benefits as a soft target. But women aren’t starting on an equal footing – women typically earn and own less than men, and are more likely to live in poverty. They do not have the same independence and financial security that men do, and they are underrepresented in boardrooms, in politics and in public life generally. Making women bear the brunt of deficit cutting measures makes a mockery of the government’s claimed commitment to fairness.
“Taken apart, many of the measures announced today will dismay women across the UK. Add them together and they’re a disastrous blow for women’s equality.”
Lord Victor Adebowale, chief executive of Turning Point
“A civilised society protects the most vulnerable and for this reason, we welcome the additional £2 billion per year which has been set aside for adult social care. Turning Point believes strongly in the need for greater integration between health and social care and supports the allocation of funds to ensure that this is achieved. In addition, we support the move to expand the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme to young and elderly people with mental health problems.
“Whilst it seems on the face of it that the anticipated cuts announced in the CSR are less than first expected, the dark shadow is the potential impact of the extra £7 billion of cuts to welfare benefits along with the removal of ring-fencing from local government revenue grants. We do not yet know the detail of these cuts and must now wait to see how they manifest themselves. There is a danger that in removing benefits from vulnerable people, issues such as poor mental health, substance misuse and criminal activity may spiral out of control. It is our hope that the poor are not affected disproportionately.”
Mark Littlewood, director general at the Institute of Economic Affairs
“The Spending Review may have gone some way to stemming the bleeding, but we have not seen the radical rethink of government which was promised in the emergency budget.
“Making our economy sustainable in the long-term requires radical restructuring, not merely cutting back on existing projects. A radical review would have seen some departments abolished altogether, not merely cut by 25% or so – for example the departments of Business, Innovation and Skills, that of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Culture, Media and Sport could all have been subsumed into other areas.
“The review also failed to take on the peripheral hand outs of child benefits for over-16s, free TV licences, winter fuel payments and bus passes for affluent elderly people.
“With the public sector job losses this review implies the challenge now is how to grow the private sector – an absurdly long tax code, maternity leave entitlements, collective pay bargaining and the minimum wage must go.”
Kamena Dorling, legal and policy officer at the Children’s Legal Centre
“We welcome the government’s commitment to education and extending the schools budget. We are also delighted that Sure Start services will be protected in cash terms.
“However, we are extremely concerned that the disappearance of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) could reduce the number of children staying in education post-16. We urge the government to act carefully in designing EMA’s replacement to ensure disadvantaged young people are not forced to leave education. We also hope the introduction of the pupil premium will be carried out carefully and fairly.
“We are waiting anxiously for further details about the future of legal aid. If the Ministry of Justice is to absorb the Legal Services Commission, with a vastly reduced overall budget, it is very unclear how the government will ensure everyone can access justice.
“We are aware that the government is planning a review of the legal aid system, but it is vital that the less well-off in our society will still be able to access justice, even in these insecure times.”
Nick Pearce, director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)
“By cutting so far and so fast the Chancellor is putting the economic recovery at risk. While relative protection has been given to investment in transport and science, overall infrastructure spending is still being sharply cut, particularly on social housing and regeneration. This is a mistake the Coalition inherited from the Labour government and it should be reversed.
“There is good news on real increases in school funding and on more money for nursery education for disadvantaged two year olds. But at the other end of the age range, badly targeted universal benefits like winter fuel allowances, free TV licences and bus passes – many of which go to increasingly prosperous pensioners – are protected. A rising Basic State Pension is vital, but these other benefits have been saved at the expense of the working poor, who will see cuts in working tax credits and childcare funding, and the young, who will have Education Maintenance Allowances removed and face rising tuition fees and higher house prices.”
“”The Chancellor claimed that one of the principles of his Spending Review was fairness. But if you cut spending by 77 per cent and raise taxes by only 23 per cent, a larger burden will fall on those who rely most on public services. The whole exercise in reducing the deficit can only be described as fair towards the less well off because it includes the last Labour government’s tax rises which were targeted on the more affluent. The Chancellor’s own chart (B.6 on p.100) shows the spending cuts and benefit and tax credit changes are regressive.”
Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the British Medical Association
“The BMA is pleased that the government has kept its pledge to protect health spending, in real terms, over the course of this parliament. We also welcome the news that spending on NHS research will grow over the course of the spending review.
“Although the NHS budget has been relatively protected, the health service has to find cost savings of £20 billion by 2014 and this is already resulting in cuts to services, staff and rationing of treatments. The NHS continues to face the demands of an ageing population and the rising costs of medicines and new technology.
“Cuts in spending in other areas, such as welfare benefits, will also have a knock-on effect on demands on the NHS. Vulnerable groups often have complex health needs and it is essential that help remains available to them.
“The Chancellor’s remarks about productivity are worrying. Doctors and nurses work extremely hard to care for their patients and will continue to do so despite the challenging times ahead. In the last decade the ‘productivity’ of healthcare staff has contributed to reduced waiting times and improvements in the quality of patient care. If the government is truly committed to reducing waste and inefficiency, their proposals for NHS reform should focus less on competition and more on a cooperative approach on delivering healthcare.”
