Don't let it be lazily said that Labour and the Conservatives are 'the same'
The next time someone (particularly someone on the left) tells you that Labour and the Conservatives are the same, point them to today’s Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) assessment of the parties’ spending plans for the next parliament.
We’ll start with the Conservatives.
Conservative plans for a reduction in borrowing in the next parliament require ‘some large spending cuts or tax increases’, as the IFS puts it. It adds:
Departments outside the NHS, education and aid look to be facing cuts of 17.9 per cent between 2014–15 and 2018–19. This would imply average cuts to these spending areas of one third in real terms from the start of austerity (in 2010-11) up to 2018-19. These ‘unprotected’ areas include defence, transport, law and order and social care.
As for Labour, according to the IFS:
[Labour] have pledged to ‘get a surplus on the current budget’ without specifying either exactly when or how much of a surplus. This pledge could be consistent with any reduction in borrowing totalling 3.6 per cent of national income or more (given the coalition government’s investment plans). A reduction in borrowing of 3.6 per cent of national income would require little in the way of spending cuts or tax increases after this year.
In terms of the measures required by Labour to bring about their plans, the IFS says that:
If [Labour] can find £7.5 billion of revenues from anti-avoidance measures, as they say they can, then they might need to find a mere £1 billion from further real cuts to unprotected departmental spending.
So there is a choice and it is between ‘cuts of 17.9 per cent between 2014–15 and 2018–19‘ and ‘little in the way of spending cuts or tax increases after this year“.
Don’t let it be lazily said that Labour and the Conservatives are ‘the same’.
James Bloodworth is the editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
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35 Responses to “There are big differences between Labour and Conservative spending plans. The IFS just proved it”
Gareth Hunt
Labour though is being “considerably more vague”, according to the IFS. It’s called playing fast and loose with the truth. Tories have said x amount much like the Lib Dems but Labour – apart from tax evasion and mansion taxes – haven’t given us any details in their manifesto.
Disgusted of Totter's Lane
When the Tories talk about an overall welfare cap, I can see how that might involve ‘massively slashing benefits’ – because at the end of the day, whatever they might say about tackling the root causes of high welfare spending, they want to keep wages low, rents high, the labour market maximally flexible, and spending that might help create jobs on a tight rein. But that whole picture changes under a government that genuinely intends to tackle low pay, high housing costs, job insecurity etc.; rather than providing them with a ‘fiscal prudence’ justification for slashing benefits, it would provide them with a ‘fiscal prudence’ justification for raising the minimum wage, building affordable homes, capping private-sector rents, etc. Miliband has been pretty consistent in arguing for just this sort of approach (as opposed to New Labour-style tolerance of low pay, high rents etc. but with the effects mitigated by higher spending on things like tax credits and housing benefit) – I think Labour should be given the benefit of the doubt here.
Norfolk29
You certainly do not recognise false statistics when you see them. Higher real incomes for about 10% of the working population. Answer Paxmans question “could you live on a zero hours contract”. I couldn’t.
JAMES MCGIBBON
The seventies recession was due to massive oil prices it would have happened Labour or Tory. The fact is is that the bankers and money lenders run the world. Governments some elected some not just manage the budget mainly for their friends if Tory and for a few more if Labour. So if you are the few more then vote Labour or start thinking about overthrowing the the system when you sober up.
Leon Wolfeson
Tories? Labour have signed onto implimenting it. And it means massively slashing benefits, because they’d breach that cap due to their action as stabilisers in the economy otherwise.
And sure, but Labour are not that party.
They have committed to a very low cap on the minimum wage’s rise. They have refused to allow councils to borrow, do not propose rent caps (rather, limiting increases, with the assumption that rents SHOULD always increase).
You are arguing that I should ascribe to a austerity-loving right winger qualities which I’d have to look as far left as,,,hmm…the SSP or PC for.
Tax Credits and Housing Benefit, for your information, are included in the benefit cap and you can expect them to eb slashed sharply as well.