With education set to take the lion's share of increases for public spending, what are the prospects for other departments? The chancellor will have little room to manoeuvre in the Comprehensive Spending Review.
In 1997, Tony Blair stated that the first three priorities of his new Labour government would be 'education, education, education'. The focus of the chancellor's recent Budget speech was spending on schools. This suggests that, in this respect at least, there may not be much difference between a Blair government and one led by Gordon Brown.
Authors
Carl Emmerson
Carl, a Deputy Director, is an editor of the IFS Green Budget, is expert on the UK pension system and sits on the Social Security Advisory Committee.
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