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Public Services for All > Published by Daniel Elton, January 18th 2011 at 12:57 pm

Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe

David Cameron reassured nervous citizens in his speech on the government’s health and education reforms yesterday on the scale of the austerity faced by public services. He said:

“Of course some decisions will be difficult and involve difficulties. But when we’re done with these cuts, spending and public services will still be at the same level as it was in 2006. We will still be spending 41% of our GDP on the public sector.”

However, the 41% figure refers to all public spending – including the costs of the financial crisis such as debt repayments, which are projected to rise, and jobseeker’s allowance spending, also projected to go up as unemployment increases.

A better measure of “spending on public services” or “spending … on the public sector” would be the Departmental Expenditure Limits which set budgets for health, education, local government, policing and other services while excluding social security and debt interest payments.

This graph, extracted from the Institute for Fiscal Studies presentation on the 2010 spending review, shows that the coalition plans to cut back departmental expenditure as a share of national income to a level close to that which Labour inherited from the Conservative government in 1990s, when, according to the prime minister “there was insufficient respect for the ethos of public services – and public service”. The vertical axis represents percentage of GDP.

Spending-review

Actual spending on public services, as reported in the Comprehensive Spending Review, is projected to fall from a 26.8 per cent this year to 20.5 per cent in 2014-15, below the 23.9 per cent spent in 2005-6, a drop in magnitude of around one tenth - and much closer to the 1998-9 figure of 20.2 per cent.

http://twitter.com/norock/status/27349018099064832 Simon HB

RT @leftfootfwd: Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/pkobi/status/27349118766555136 peter kobi

RT @leftfootfwd: Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/bitfuzzy/status/27349236920094720 Deb

RT @leftfootfwd: Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/karlosmacronius/status/27351026327621632 Karl Macrow

RT @leftfootfwd: Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/nhsspy/status/27353603580624898 Watching You

RT @leftfootfwd: Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/myinfamy/status/27428174937726976 Daniel Pitt

RT @leftfootfwd: Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/jruddy99/status/27431344699080704 John Ruddy

RT @leftfootfwd: Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe http://bit.ly/fVBFFU < back to 1997
http://twitter.com/craigjoneslab/status/27434726750945280 craigjoneslab

Tory claims that spending cuts reduce spending to 2006 levels false, more like the mid-90s days of leaking school roofs http://bit.ly/e14TaR
http://twitter.com/slintottuk/status/27441865041121280 Stephen Lintott

Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe | Left Foot Forward http://tinyurl.com/48b5u9t
http://twitter.com/falseecon/status/27462086120443904 False Economy

RT @leftfootfwd Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/darkestangel31/status/27462360474062848 DarkestAngel

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/psychoticlynx/status/27462884237770752 Kim Blake

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/frdragonspouse/status/27463244348137472 Jill Hayward

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/savespservices/status/27463755990310912 Sam Dixon

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/chr1sr0berts/status/27464448021106689 Chris Roberts

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/lancscuts/status/27468362745384960 lancscuts

Budget cuts deeper than government claim http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/01/david-cameron-dubious-cuts-claim/
http://twitter.com/ldtuc/status/27470240950521856 L DTUC

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
william

The money had run out (Lliam Byrne).Gordon Brown’s experiment,no more boom and bust,had the same validity as his degree in history from a minor university.As a consequence, we lost the 2010 election by a mile.There is no hope of us being reelected until we admit to our failings.
http://twitter.com/yrotitna/status/27472581170831361 Juan Voet

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/unitelondon/status/27473606481018881 Don’t Break Britain

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/techno_peasant/status/27477743461474304 andy

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/nickbloke/status/27502275492577282 Nick H.

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/spsot/status/27516617592152064 Spir.Sotiropoulou

RT @leftfootfwd: Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe http://bit.ly/fVBFFU
http://twitter.com/ukcuts/status/27740692956581888 cutsandgrazes dotcom

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe: http://bit.ly/forjGC reports @DanielElton
http://twitter.com/curmudgeon_1/status/28910347742089216 curmudgeon 1

RT @leftfootfwd: Budget cuts are deeper than Cameron would have you believe http://bit.ly/fVBFFU
http://www.logicalconclusion.net Logical Conclusion

What’s the alternative? Those costs were piled on us under Labour.
http://twitter.com/dianehain/status/138986287951650816 Diane Hain

Actually, we've covered @toadmeister's "spending is increasing" claim twice – first when it was made by Cameron: http://t.co/JLLdHEmF
http://twitter.com/anguavonuber/status/138986691091378176 E’Liza Gedrych

Actually, we've covered @toadmeister's "spending is increasing" claim twice – first when it was made by Cameron: http://t.co/JLLdHEmF
http://twitter.com/krustyallslopp/status/138986893445578753 KrustyAllslopp

Actually, we've covered @toadmeister's "spending is increasing" claim twice – first when it was made by Cameron: http://t.co/JLLdHEmF
http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/12/the-perversity-of-daniel-hannan-and-the-cuts-deniers/ The perversity of Dan Hannan and the “there are no cuts” brigade | Left Foot Forward

[...] stuff we want to spend on like healthcare, education, parks and so on. Such spending is due to be cut from 27% of GDP in 2010 to just 20% of GDP in [...]