Election Winners Will Have to Shrink State or Raise Taxes, Says Think Tank

Whichever party wins the next election will have to cut public spending to return the state closer to a post-World War II average or raise taxes to maintain current levels of departmental funding, a think tank has said. The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) said in a report published on Sunday that over the last Parliament, spending had grown by 4.5 percent of national income, which is “significantly higher growth” than under any post-war Conservative government. The IFS, an independent economic institute, noted that since 2019, both debt interest and spending on social security benefits and the state pension “have grown significantly faster than was expected.”...