Richard Exell
Across the country, Connexions services are preparing for cuts of 20 per cent, with one in five expecting at least 60 redundancies. Children and Young People Now’s survey of the 65 Connexions services found that a majority were expecting to make cuts of at least 20 per cent, one in ten cuts of 40 to 50 per cent.
Nigel Stanley
Here’s an important poll on attitudes to the cuts.
It was commissioned by the BBC for their Newsnight special on the coalition, from ComRes. The full tables are here.
I think the questions here are much better worded than those in the YouGov polls I linked to in my rather lengthy post on resisting the cuts (though I blame the clients – both ComRes and YouGov are good pollsters).
The results here are pretty consistent with the earlier polls though. Most buy the necessity for big cuts, but are beginning to be worried that they will be affected and that they might be going too far. What is new here is that a majority think they might be bad for the wider economy.
Richard Exell
The National Housing Federation has warned that 40 per cent cuts in funding for social housing could lead to more than half a million people becoming homeless and raise unemployment by more than a quarter of a million.
Philip Pearson
What would our low carbon economy look like without UK-based steel, cement, glass or brick manufacture? According to a new TUC study, the combined impact of the Government’s climate change policies is imposing significant costs on the UK’s energy intensive industries. Jobs essential to a low carbon future are at risk. Without urgent review, current policies could see some prime UK companies leave the UK for good. Carbon leakage could be the net result – the loss of jobs, investment and our ability to regulate carbon emissions – as competitors with fewer controls on emissions benefit.
Nicola Smith
The Department of Health has announced the abolition of several arms length bodies, including the Alcohol Education and Research Council, National Patient Safety Agency and the Appointments Commission.
Richard Exell
Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport has announced the abolition of the UK Film Council, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, the Advisory Council on Libraries and the Advisory Committee on Historic Wreck Sites. UK Sport and Sport England are to be merged, as are the National Lottery Commission and Gambling Commission.
Richard Exell
The Review of education capital spending, announced by Michael Gove when he cancelled Building Schools for the Future, may not report for another five months.
Richard Exell
It is “most unlikely” that the UK’s 24 regional nanotechnology centres will still exist in 18 months, according to science minister David Willetts.
Owen Tudor
The debate rages in the Financial Times comment columns – should we continue the fiscal stimulus as the TUC argues, or cut the deficit as fast as possible, as the Coalition Government is doing? And it rages around the world. The latest paper from the US-based Center for Economic Policy and Research, “Alternatives to Fiscal Austerity in Spain”, argues that the pro-cyclical policies of cutting the deficit being followed by the Spanish Government, as advocated by the IMF and EU, could lead the Spanish Government’s debt to be higher than if the maintained their fiscal stimulus. The main argument – which the TUC believes also applies in the UK – is that the most important element of debt reduction is growth, and cutting Government expenditure will reduce or restrain growth, leading to more debt (due to lower tax takes and more state benefit expenditure, for example).
Richard Exell