Key findings

  • Underpinned by an assessment that it must both deliver a surplus in order to reduce debt and do so via spending cuts, the government is set to reduce the size of the state towards historic lows
  • Subjective choices about the split between DEL and AME, consumption and investment and different services and groups fundamentally alter the shape of the state over time
  • In particular, the nature of the post-crisis consolidation – allied with demographic changes – is serving to increase the share of overall spending on older people and health while reducing the share going to working-age families and economic growth
  • This may or may not be the right balance to strike, but there is a danger that we fail to check in on these developments until after they occur – what do we want the state to do?

Further reading

We’re going on a growth Hunt
Putting the 2023 Spring Budget in context
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Torsten Bell, Mike Brewer, Molly Broome, Nye Cominetti, Adam Corlett, Emily Fry, Sophie Hale, Karl Handscomb, Charlie McCurdy, Louise Murphy, Felicia Odamtten, Cara Pacitti, Simon Pittaway, Krishan Shah, James Smith, Greg Thwaites, Lalitha Try
New Budget, same problems
Spring Budget preview
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Molly Broome, Adam Corlett, Emily Fry, Karl Handscomb, Louise Murphy, Felicia Odamtten, Cara Pacitti, Krishan Shah, Hannah Slaughter, James Smith, Greg Thwaites, Lalitha Try
Jeremy Hunt’s smooth(ing) Budget
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Torsten Bell, Emily Fry
Matthew Whittaker
Matthew Whittaker
Adam Corlett
Adam Corlett Principal Economist
David Finch
David Finch