As Mr Osborne sought to head off attacks from Labour in the wake of the Paris attacks he revealed there will be no cut to the police budget.
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Prime Minister David Cameron’s conservative government suffered a humiliating defeat last month when the House of Lords rejected plans to cut tax credits.
However, while IFS director Paul Johnson said the cuts were “less severe” than expected it was “not the end of austerity” and was “one of the tightest” spending review’s in post-war history.
“I wrote to the Chancellor urging him to provide additional support for Hertfordshire, and local authorities across the country, so we can meet some of these immediate and challenging responsibilities”.
But he defended the decision by pointing to an improvement in public finances, and the fact that separate tax credits were to be phased out anyway case as a result of introducing Universal Credit (UC).
The opposition Labour Party has also fiercely opposed the tax credit changes under the leadership of new leader Jeremy Corbyn.
He said he was aiming to borrow less in the current financial year than estimated in July.
“He has tried to come up with a solution and a solution I am absolutely over the moon with”.
THE head of the Metropolitan Police has welcomed the news police budgets will not be further cut.
“IFS research today shows that George Osborne has not reversed his cuts, just delayed them”. Now is the time to back our police and give them the tools to do the job.
“I am today announcing there will be no cuts in the police budget at all”.
Even so, the scale of cuts in areas that were not ring-fenced was still substantial – on average, 19 per cent. There will be no cuts to health, pensions, per-pupil funding for schools, global aid and defence.
County council leader Carl Les said: “While we are always reluctant to raise council tax we will have to consider this step if we are to protect the most vulnerable in our society”.
The decisions were made possible by tax increases and a 27 billion-pound ($41 billion) windfall from changes to forecasts for revenue and debt-interest costs.
“We said this was a smoke-and-mirrors spending review and we were right”.
The organization also found the average loss for families in the lowest half of income distribution is £650, whereas in the top half there is no average loss at all.
But Mr Osborne said the move would mean the Government would breach its own cap on benefits in the first years of this parliament. The public spending plans set out in the Spending Review mean Britain will reach a surplus of £10.1 billion in 2019/20 – that’s higher than was forecast at the Budget and means Britain will be out of the red and into the black.
George Osborne announced the country would be running a budget surplus by the close of the decade.
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“The Chancellor has not yet outlined the impact the spending review will have on local authorities”.
