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

Help today, squeeze tomorrow
Putting the 2022 Autumn Statement in context
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Torsten Bell, Mike Brewer, Molly Broome, Nye Cominetti, Adam Corlett, Emily Fry, Sophie Hale, Karl Handscomb, Jack Leslie, Jonathan Marshall, Charlie McCurdy, Krishan Shah, James Smith, Greg Thwaites, Lalitha Try
One statement, two challenges
How the Autumn Statement is likely to respond to weaker public finances and high energy bills
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Torsten Bell
Mind the (credibility) gap
Autumn Statement preview
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Torsten Bell, Adam Corlett, Jack Leslie, Jonathan Marshall, Felicia Odamtten, Krishan Shah, James Smith, Lalitha Try
Matthew Whittaker
Matthew Whittaker
Adam Corlett
Adam Corlett Principal Economist
David Finch
David Finch