UK government makes massive spending cuts

| 20/10/2010

(CNS): Chancellor George Osborne has announced the UK government’s four-year Spending Review to Parliament, revealing some of the deepest cuts in British public spending in decades. According to a BBC report the UK government has cut spending by £81billion. Everything, from spending on the Royal Household to the police budget has been cut, with an average reduction of 19% across the board though some budgets have been slashed by as much as 62%. Almost half a million civil service jobs will be lost and the country’s retirement age is to increase from 65 to 66. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office – which oversees the country’s dependent territories has been cut by almost 25 percent.

The Chancellor is also making a levy on bank balance sheets permanent “to extract the maximum sustainable tax revenues from financial services" which, he said, has the potential to raise billions of pounds. Osborne said he wanted banks to make a fair contribution. However, pundits are already suggesting this could drive business to rival financial centres.

The BBC has been told it must take over the cost of the World Service, currently funded by the Foreign Office. According to politicsUK with a quarter of the Foreign office budget shaved it will shift its focus almost entirely to promoting British exports and business abroad.

The Foreign Secretary William Hague’s department will see many of its more traditional diplomatic functions cut back or sidelined. "Non-essential" programmes will be axed and many FCO workers in embassies and high commissions will be made redundant.

See details of UK cuts at www.bbc.co.uk
 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Category: World News

About the Author ()

Comments (1)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. Anonymous says:

    Now this is called leading by example and being prudent with the public purse. 

    And the time for Cayman to follow suit is long overdue Mr Bush – you got to becruel to be kind – Cayman is depending on you to make similar cuts on public expenditure, and senior civil servants pay, pensions and healtchare arrangements.