By David Williams
15 April 2010
Economists have said detailed financial plans in the Liberal Democrat manifesto do not give a complete enough picture of what they would do if they formed the next government.
The document, published on April 14, went further than the Conservative and Labour manifestos by setting out four pages of proposals adding up to annual net savings of £10.7bn from public budgets by 2013/14.
But Treasury spokesman Vince Cable admitted the measures alone would not halve the £70bn structural deficit by the end of the next Parliament, and promised a Spending Review this summer.
Martin Weale, director of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, praised the party for providing more data than its rivals, but told Public Finance: ‘We need a much clearer view on how they’re going to reduce the deficit – in particular what they will do if revenue turns out to be weaker than they hope.’
He also called on all parties to confront ‘fundamental distortions’ caused by tax relief on debt interest. ‘They’ve tried to blame it all on the banking system when actually the government should be looking at what it does to create incentives for that sort of thing.’
Robert Chote and Carl Emmerson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies added: ‘The measures tell us something about the composition of the tightening, rather than its size.’
15 April 2010
Economists have said detailed financial plans in the Liberal Democrat manifesto do not give a complete enough picture of what they would do if they formed the next government.
The document, published on April 14, went further than the Conservative and Labour manifestos by setting out four pages of proposals adding up to annual net savings of £10.7bn from public budgets by 2013/14.
But Treasury spokesman Vince Cable admitted the measures alone would not halve the £70bn structural deficit by the end of the next Parliament, and promised a Spending Review this summer.
Martin Weale, director of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, praised the party for providing more data than its rivals, but told Public Finance: ‘We need a much clearer view on how they’re going to reduce the deficit – in particular what they will do if revenue turns out to be weaker than they hope.’
He also called on all parties to confront ‘fundamental distortions’ caused by tax relief on debt interest. ‘They’ve tried to blame it all on the banking system when actually the government should be looking at what it does to create incentives for that sort of thing.’
Robert Chote and Carl Emmerson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies added: ‘The measures tell us something about the composition of the tightening, rather than its size.’
