Gloomy outlook for public spending

Abstract

Though now into their second term of office, the Government are still trying to fulfil the objectives of the first ‐ to cut public spending and reduce taxes. The hard choices they eventually make will in part be dictated by the following sorts of considerations:

• technical ‐ year‐to‐year forecasts

• economic ‐ growth in gdp

• political ‐ reduction in income support.

At the centre of these and other often conflicting sets of considerations is the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Chancellors make many statements, but few are as clear as that made by Nigel Lawson, in the course of an interview with Max Wilkinson, economics editor of the Financial Times, from which we have extracted the following.