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The financial crisis and the recession have prompted a huge increase in government borrowing over the last two years, as the gap between what the public sector spends and raises from taxes has widened to an extent not seen since the Second World War. This Briefing Note examines what the parties have said (explicitly and implicitly) about the scale, timing and composition of the fiscal repair job ahead, teasing out the differences and similarities.
Authors

Deputy Director
Carl, a Deputy Director, is an editor of the IFS Green Budget, an expert on the UK pension system and sits on the Social Security Advisory Committee.

Robert Chote

Gemma Tetlow

Rowena Crawford
Report details
- DOI
- 10.1920/bn.ifs.2010.0099
- Publisher
- Institute for Fiscal Studies
Suggested citation
Chote, R et al. (2010). Filling the hole: how do the three main UK parties plan to repair the public finances?. London: Institute for Fiscal Studies. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/filling-hole-how-do-three-main-uk-parties-plan-repair-public-finances (accessed: 10 February 2025).
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