Nicola Smith

In addition to its top line commitments to significantly accelerate the speed to deficit reduction ‘with the main burden of deficit reduction borne by reduced spending rather than increased taxes’ the Coalition Agreement gives us some new information on future cuts. These are:

• Cutting costs in the Ministry of Defence by 25%
• Cutting administration costs in the NHS by a third
• A fundamental review of Legal Aid to make it more ‘efficient’
• A cut in the number of non-departmental public bodies
• The Government Office for London will be cut, with other Government Offices at risk of closure
• ‘Many further education quangos’ will be abolished
• The Infrastructure Planning Commission will be cut
• The Standards Board regime will be abolished

In addition, existing commitments to cut Child Trust Funds and Child Tax Credits for ‘high earners’ (the threshold is not yet defined) have been re-stated.