Britain’s next government will need to fill a shortfall of up to £33bn in the public finances unless it is prepared to push through a fresh round of severe austerity measures, a thinktank has warned.
The Resolution Foundation said the debate between Labour and the Conservatives over the funding of specific pledges was “detached from reality”, with election promises based on cuts that would be hard to deliver.
The Office for Budget Responsibility, the Treasury’s tax and spending watchdog, has estimated that the government is on course to meet its debt-to-GDP target with just £9bn to spare, but the Resolution Foundation said the winning party in the general election would face the choice of raising taxes or cutting spending to meet its debt target.
In its annual health check on the UK economy last month, the International Monetary Fund warned of a £30bn post-election hole.
James Smith, the Resolution Foundation’s research director, said: “The state of the public finances has dominated the election campaign so far, with the inevitable arguments over how each spending pledge is funded.
But this narrow focus risks distracting the electorate from the bigger question of how each party would manage the uncertainties facing the public finances.
The original article contains 481 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 58%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Britain’s next government will need to fill a shortfall of up to £33bn in the public finances unless it is prepared to push through a fresh round of severe austerity measures, a thinktank has warned.
The Resolution Foundation said the debate between Labour and the Conservatives over the funding of specific pledges was “detached from reality”, with election promises based on cuts that would be hard to deliver.
The Office for Budget Responsibility, the Treasury’s tax and spending watchdog, has estimated that the government is on course to meet its debt-to-GDP target with just £9bn to spare, but the Resolution Foundation said the winning party in the general election would face the choice of raising taxes or cutting spending to meet its debt target.
In its annual health check on the UK economy last month, the International Monetary Fund warned of a £30bn post-election hole.
James Smith, the Resolution Foundation’s research director, said: “The state of the public finances has dominated the election campaign so far, with the inevitable arguments over how each spending pledge is funded.
But this narrow focus risks distracting the electorate from the bigger question of how each party would manage the uncertainties facing the public finances.
The original article contains 481 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 58%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!