General Election 2015: Party leaders will not deliver spending cuts, economists warn
Neither the Conservatives nor Labour will be able to deliver the spending cuts they have promised for the next parliament, a group of economists warned yesterday.
Oxford Economics has adjusted its macroeconomic forecasts to assume that cuts will be reined in, whoever wins the election in 2015.
“The scale of the planned cuts to departmental spending will be impossible to deliver, particularly given the commitments to protect spending on health, international development and parts of the education budget,” it concludes.
“All the major parties are in denial over the parlous state of the public finances. The truth is the next government will need to find tens of billions in savings,” warned Mark Littlewood, director general of the Institute of Economic Affairs. “They owe it to the public to be honest about how they intend to do so,” he added.