The IFS’s verdict on George Osborne’s ‘deeply disappointing’ Budget

In the March Budget – and, indeed in the Conservative manifesto – we were promised budget balance by 2018-19. That magic moment has now been shifted back a year. In part, that reflects a gentler than planned path for spending cuts, including welfare spending cuts. The gentler path does not however represent a let up in the overall scale of cuts – other than for defence. Spending in unprotected departments (those other than health, overseas aid, schools and, now, defence) will still have fallen by about a third in real terms over the ten years to April 2020.

The Budget was certainly not short on measures. The scorecard shows net tax increases of £6.5 billion a year by 2020 (although whether these are all fully realised remains to be seen) but benefit cuts were at the centre of the budget strategy. The Chancellor did not manage to find the £12 billion of cuts by 2017-18 he has repeatedly promised, announcing just £7 billion worth of cuts by then.