George Osborne sets summer budget date so Tories can keep 'election pledges'

Mr Osborne could unveil where £12bn in welfare cuts will fall

Ben Chu
Saturday 16 May 2015 11:35 BST
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Cities will need 'a single point of accountability,' the Chancellor will say
Cities will need 'a single point of accountability,' the Chancellor will say

The Chancellor George Osborne has said he will unveil the first Budget of a majority Conservative government on 8 July.

Mr Osborne could unveil where £12bn in welfare cuts, which the Tories have said they will make over the next five years as part of their quest to run an absolute budget surplus, will fall. Only £2bn of this total has so far been specified.

The Chancellor’s summer Budget is also expected to include measures to make economies in Whitehall and to crack down on tax avoidance.

“I am going to take the unusual step of having a second Budget of the year – because I don’t want to wait to turn the promises we made in the election into a reality,” Mr Osborne writes in The Sun newspaper.

But the main fiscal event of the year is likely to be the next departmental Spending Review, at which the Chancellor will unveil where an estimated £30bn of cuts will be found across Whitehall. The existing spending-review period only extends to next March, which means a new programme must be in place by the end of the year.

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