Next government may struggle to fund public services due to biggest debt challenge since 1950s
The next government could struggle to fund public services because of the biggest debt challenge since the 1950s, according to a respected thinktank.
Whichever party wins the next election may be unable to fund key services if politicians are not transparent about the trade-offs they face, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says in a new report.
Higher borrowing costs, as a result of increased interest rates, as well as low economic growth and both the Conservatives and Labour committing to reduce debt, leave the next government with little financial flexibility, the IFS adds.
It could be one of the most difficult parliaments for tax and spending since the 1950s, according to the report.
It says: “These challenges – unlike a conflict, pandemic or financial crisis – are entirely predictable.
“None can be meaningfully confronted by a government that wilfully ignores reality and the need to choose between difficult competing options.
“As tempting as it may be to engage in ‘cakeism’ – to seek to have the government’s fiscal cake and eat it – any party serious about governing after the election should resist the urge. The electorate surely deserves better than that.”
The government will have to achieve something that hasn’t been done in 20 years – tax takes and state revenue streams will have to rise to become greater than government outgoings.
This is more difficult at present with the current high debt interest payments and low growth forecasts.
Achieving debt reduction goals by raising taxes may also be politically unpalatable as the UK tax burden, the amount of taxes paid as a percentage of national income, is at a high not seen since the Second World War.
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What is fiscal headroom?
Potential budget cuts will be difficult, too, the IFS says – as living standards have been in a period of “record-long stagnation” and public services are “visibly struggling, and performing less well than they were back in 2010”.
But public services, except health, are to have an effective budget cut as funding isn’t being “sufficiently topped up”, the IFS said at the time of the autumn statement.
The thinktank says political parties need to “be honest with the public about the tough trade-offs they will inevitably have to make on tax and spending”.
“If they are promising tax cuts, let’s hear where the spending cuts will fall. If they are going to raise, or even protect, spending, they should tell us where taxes will rise,” IFS director Paul Johnson said.
“Or parties might think that further increases in government debt are justified: in which case they should make the argument for why debt should be rising.”
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Politics
Norman Tebbit: Former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government dies aged 94
Norman Tebbit, the former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government, has died at the age of 94.
Lord Tebbit died “peacefully at home” late on Monday night, his son William confirmed.
One of Mrs Thatcher’s most loyal cabinet ministers, he was a leading political voice throughout the turbulent 1980s.
He held the posts of employment secretary, trade secretary, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Conservative party chairman before resigning as an MP in 1992 after his wife was left disabled by the Provisional IRA’s bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton.
He considered standing for the Conservative leadership after Mrs Thatcher’s resignation in 1990, but was committed to taking care of his wife.
Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit in 1987 after her election victory. Pic: PA
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called him an “icon” in British politics and was “one of the leading exponents of the philosophy we now know as Thatcherism”.
“But to many of us it was the stoicism and courage he showed in the face of terrorism, which inspired us as he rebuilt his political career after suffering terrible injuries in the Brighton bomb, and cared selflessly for his wife Margaret, who was gravely disabled in the bombing,” she wrote on X.
“He never buckled under pressure and he never compromised. Our nation has lost one of its very best today and I speak for all the Conservative family and beyond in recognising Lord Tebbit’s enormous intellect and profound sense of duty to his country.
“May he rest in peace.”
Lord Tebbit and his wife Margaret stand outside the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Pic: PA
Tory grandee David Davis told Sky News Lord Tebbit was a “great working class Tory, always ready to challenge establishment conventional wisdom for the bogus nonsense it often was”.
“He was one of Thatcher’s bravest and strongest lieutenants, and a great friend,” Sir David said.
“He had to deal with the agony that the IRA visited on him and his wife, and he did so with characteristic unflinching courage. He was a great man.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage said Lord Tebbit “gave me a lot of help in my early days as an MEP”.
He was “a great man. RIP,” he added.
Lord Tebbit as employment secretary in 1983 with Mrs Thatcher. Pic: PA
Born to working-class parents in north London, he was made a life peer in 1992, where he sat until he retired in 2022.
Lord Tebbit was trade secretary when he was injured in the Provisional IRA’s bombing in Brighton during the Conservative Party conference in 1984.
Five people died in the attack and Lord Tebbit’s wife, Margaret, was left paralysed from the neck down. She died in 2020 at the age of 86.
Before entering politics, his first job, aged 16, was at the Financial Times where he had his first experience of trade unions and vowed to “break the power of the closed shop”.
He then trained as a pilot with the RAF – at one point narrowly escaping from the burning cockpit of a Meteor 8 jet – before becoming the MP for Epping in 1970 then for Chingford in 1974.
Lord Tebbit during an EU debate in the House of Lords in 1997. Pic: PA
As a cabinet minister, he was responsible for legislation that weakened the powers of the trade unions and the closed shop, making him the political embodiment of the Thatcherite ideology that was in full swing.
His tough approach was put to the test when riots erupted in Brixton, south London, against the backdrop of high rates of unemployment and mistrust between the black community and the police.
He was frequently misquoted as having told the unemployed to “get on your bike”, and was often referred to as “Onyerbike” for some time afterwards.
What he actually said was he grew up in the ’30s with an unemployed father who did not riot, “he got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it”.
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