The first six billion

On 24 May the Tory-Liberal government announced its first instalment of cuts. It will announce its larger plans on 22 June.

The cuts include:

• More than £1 billion from central government allocations to local government, i.e. cuts in local services.
• More than £700 million from central government allocations to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
• £320 million by scrapping the "child trust fund" set up by the Labour government (which would pay small amounts to each baby, designed to accumulate into a still small but useful stash by age 18).
• £290 million by scrapping another Labour government fund designed to provide temporary placements for young people out of work. £311 million in central government grants for local children's and yloung people's services.
• Much more in a freeze on civil service recruitment and largely unspecified "efficiencies". The civil service union PCS comments: "With some departments being told to axe hundreds of millions of pounds from their budgets for this year, the union does not believe this can be done without hitting vital public services".
• The package is sugar-coated with cuts to payments to "consultants", on ministers' cars, and on top civil servants' first-class rail travel.