🔎 Jeremy Hunt's options to balance the books with spending cuts, from pensions to foreign aid
will be “eye-watering” – and there is no way to fill the black hole in the public finances without making politically contentious calls.at the same pace as earnings, 5.5 per cent, rather than the 10.1 per cent earnings rate.
Mr Hunt will doubtless push to spend the existing budgets more effectively, and may seek to reduce the amount of money spent on schools because the number of pupils is forecast to fall over the coming years.This is the lowest-hanging fruit for the Government. One easy option is to keep aid spending at 0.5 per cent of GDP permanently, rather than returning it to 0.7 per cent as previously promised.
The UK’s military budget will reach 3 per cent of GDP by 2030, the Government has promised, although spending may rise more slowly in the short term than originally expected.Mr Sunak cut fuel duty by 5p a litre earlier this year; the temporary move was widely expected to be made permanent, but Mr Hunt is now likely to restore the levy to its original rate.
This would involve a reversal of Boris Johnson’s promise to ramp up capital spending as part of the “levelling up” agenda.If Mr Hunt wants to save maximum money with minimum political pain, he could seek to reduce spending by perhaps 1.5 per cent across every Whitehall department.
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