Am I just not understanding or are there unannounced defence cuts planned as highlighted by ORAC? I see a 6.3% cut in Defence planned RDEL between 2023-24 and 2024-25, and a 1.6% cut in CDEL. £2.3Billion in total, so bang goes the second trance of the £5 billion over two years.
To quote the (right leaning) IFS via
Civil Service World
Defence-spending pledge "not worth the paper it's written on"
Yesterday's budget saw Hunt set out a handful of aspirational pledges. They included floating the idea that a future Conservative government might abolish National Insurance contributions and promising defence spending would rise to 2.5% of gross domestic product from the current 2% "as soon as economic conditions allow".
IFS director Paul Johnson said today that Hunt's stance on defence spending was remarkable.
"Economic conditions allowed a £10bn cut in NICs this year. So they could have allowed a £10bn increase in defence spending instead," he said. "That would have just about met the target. Actions speak louder than words."
Johnson said the aspiration to abolish National Insurance was as unrealistic as the restated defence-spending stance.
"This pledge to cut taxes by more than £40bn goes in the same bucket as pledges to increase defence spending – not worth the paper its written on unless accompanied by some sense of how it will be afforded," he said.
<Rant> IMO any sensible party would be suggesting raising the personal allowance to c. 20k and introducing a >=30% band at Median Income level, settting the higher threshold at the 90th Income Centile, substantially reducing the starting rate for additional rate, adjusting higher and additional rates to fund a 2% overall rise in income tax and NI take, and scrapping the NI upper earnings limit and also the allowance taper to get rid of the 60% trap,. </Rant>