Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happenNo 10 to write to Ipsa demanding rethink on MPs’ 10% pay riseDavid Miliband to speak at IoD conference in London IFS accuses government of being ‘misleading’ about impact of cuts 12.38pm BST The IFS produced its assessment of the impact of spending cuts on the basis of the plans already announced by the Conservatives. (See 11.41am.) Their assessment did not include the figures that George Osborne is set to announce within the next few minutes.Here is the IFS chart saying what’s coming. I’ve taken it from the IFS slide presentation (pdf). 12.30pm BST Leslie tells Osborne he should publish a Treasury risk analysis of the impact of leaving the EU.Leslie describes the benefits cap as “necessary”. 12.26pm BST My colleague Patrick Wintour says George Osborne will announce cuts worth £200m to local government, alongside the expected 5% cuts to non-protected departmental budgets.£200m cuts to local government alongside the 5 % cuts to other non protected departments this year due to be announced George Osborne. 12.24pm BST Chris Leslie, the shadow chancellor, is opening the Queen’s speech economy debate.In a reference to George Osborne’s leadership ambitions, Leslie says that very few people serve two full terms as chancellor and that people will be glad that Osborne is not planning to do that himself. 12.20pm BST In the Commons earlier Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, said the government was scrapping its 18-week referral-to-treatment target.Raising a point of order, he said:During this exchange, news has reached me that the secretary of state is in Liverpool announcing the scrapping of the 18-week target, presumably because they know they can no longer meet it.You have expressed your own concern forcibly in your own way and it’s on the record. It would not be appropriate to ask the minister to respond because we can’t have interrogation through point of order and the continuation of debate. 12.09pm BST On the Daily Politics Lord Forsyth, the Conservative peer, said that MPs should accept their proposed pay rise.Tory Lord Forsyth says "of course" MPs should accept payrise; should "bite the bullet" though he admits "difficult presentationally"Lord Forsyth on MPs taking pay rise: "Of course they should." Otherwise MPs will be people who "couldn't find a job anywhere else" #bbcdp 11.58am BST The Queens speech economy debate is due to start in about 10 minutes.George Osborne, the chancellor, will be speaking, and he is expected to announce some details of proposed spending cuts.Hearing that Osborne is about to announce five per cent cuts to all non-protected budgets this year. Statement coming at twelve.George Osborne is seeking to cut the budgets of most government departments this year by an extra 5 per cent in a move that raises the chances of Britain missing a crucial Nato target for defence spending. The Treasury has told each ministry, with the exception of health, education and international development, to find savings amounting to £3 billion or more before the budget on July 8. 11.41am BST And here is the statement from Carl Emmerson, the Institute for Fiscal Studies’s deputy director, about the briefing the IFS and the Institute for Government presented this morning.Here are the main points he made.The cuts that the government announces later this year in next month’s Budget and the following Spending Review may turn out to be deliverable. But they certainly will not feel like is just 1% being taken out of each area of spending, nor will it require merely “£13 billion from departmental savings” as the Conservative manifesto described. While not inaccurate, these numbers give a misleading impression of what departmental spending in many areas will look like if the manifesto commitment to eliminate the deficit by 2018–19, largely through spending cuts, while not cutting spending in many areas, is to be met.As this IFS observation published last week points out, finding the sought after £12 billion of cuts in just two years will not be easy. Cuts of this scale amount to almost 10% of unprotected benefits. Finding such a reduction without cutting child benefit, which has been pledged this week, would mean that even more significant cuts would likely be required to spending on one or more of tax credits, housing benefit and disability & incapacity benefits.To meet its overall spending target, even delivering the £12 billion of cuts to social security spending would still leave the government needing a slight acceleration of cuts to departmental spending, compared to what we have seen since 2010–11. As shown in the figure, the cuts would need to increase from the 2.0% a year seen over the five years from 2010–11 to 2015–16, to 2.2% a year over the three years from 2015–16 to 2018–19. This would give a total cut of £23.8 billion across all departments between 2015–16 and 2018–19. That’s on top of the £2.2 billion of cuts taking place in 2015–16 and the £49.2 billion of cuts delivered between 2009–10 and 2014–15.The coalition government was successful in keeping (broadly) to the spending plans set out in 2010. However it was helped by lower-than-forecast nominal growth in private sector wages, which made it easier (at least economically) to constrain the public sector pay bill.There are further reasons to think the next phase of cuts will be harder to deliver than those achieved since 2010. Presumably efficiencies that were easy to identify and to deliver have already been made. Similarly programmes judged to be low-value have already been scrapped. And, from next April, public sector employers will find the cost of offering their staff public service pensions rises as reduced National Insurance payments for contracting out end (£3.3 billion) and new scheme valuations push up the required employer contribution rate (£1.1 billion). On top of this, new spending commitments – such as the extension of free childcare (costed by the Conservatives at £350 million), the new tax-free childcare scheme (£0.8 billion), the removal of the cap on higher education student numbers (£0.7 billion) and the Dilnot social care funding reforms (£1.0 billion) – will further increase the cuts required elsewhere. Meanwhile demand for some public services – including social care – continues to rise as the population grows (and ages). 11.25am BST My colleague Heather Stewart has been at the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Institute for Government’s briefing about the spending review. She has been tweeting the highlights.Carl Emmerson @TheIFS: Conservatives' welfare cuts target implies 10% a year cuts to "unprotected" areas - ie outside pensioner benefits.Carl Emmerson cites cuts that cd meet target. eg. cutting child element of tax credits saves £5bn but wd increase child poverty by 300,000.Carl Emmerson @theifs Cam's claim we just need to save £1 in every £100 "seriously underestimates the size of the challenge that we face".Julian McCrae from @instituteforgov: greater pressures on spending now than in 2010. eg. public concern about NHS is growing. 11.01am BST The Institute of Directors is not an organisation known for its keen interest in international development. But someone there had the bright idea of inviting the head of the American aid organisation, the International Rescue Committee, to speak at its annual conference in London in October. And he has accepted.The IRC chief is, of course, David Miliband.After a general election campaign which focussed narrowly on domestic issues, now is the time to look up at the global trends affecting business. With a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU due before 2017, Greece lurching from crisis to crisis, and conflict on Europe’s borders, it couldn’t be a better time to review what globalisation means in 2015. There are few people better placed than David Miliband to explore these issues, and we are delighted he will be joining us at the IoD’s annual convention. His time as foreign secretary and work with the IRC give him a unique perspective on the challenges of the modern world, and what they mean both for established businesses and entrepreneurs. 10.45am BST We have not heard much from the polling companies since the election, but ComRes has been in touch this morning, with the results of the first poll it has conducted since polling day.It gives the Tories a 12-point lead. But what’s more interesting than the result is the methodology. ComRes has developed a new voter turnout model, which is intended to better assess how likely respondents are to vote. Like other polling companies, ComRes used to use a form of turnout weighting before the general election which involved asking people how likely they were to vote. If someone said 10 (out of a scale for 10), their “vote” counted for twice as much as someone saying their chance of voting was 5 out of 10.This is the first poll using the new ComRes voter turnout model. The model simulates the likelihood of each respondent to vote based on their age and social grade. This has been calculated using actual general election turnout data on a constituency level and matches it with the known age and social grade profiles of the constituencies taken from the census. This will provide a more accurate reflection of the actual voting public. The polls at May’s general election tended to overestimate Labour’s support. At ComRes our review has uncovered that much of Labour’s backing was coming from groups that were less likely to actually turnout and vote than others. We’ve used this, along with official turnout data to build a voter turnout model which more accurately predicts who is more and less likely to vote, to ensure we’re getting the most accurate reflection of the voting public. The new Labour leader would do well to learn similar lessons, and concentrate on targeting those groups who are actually going to vote and where Labour has struggled in the past. 10.11am BST Here is a chart from the latest Ipsa document (pdf) showing how MPs’ pay compares to the pay of other senior professionals.These figures are based on MPs’ current pay. 10.05am BST IPSA first proposed a large pay rise for MPs in a long report in July 2013.I covered the contents in great detail on a blog at the time. Here is the post explaining in detail why Ipsa said MPs should receive £74,000 a year.We remain of the view that it is right to increase MPs’ pay to £74,000 for all the reasons we set out in December 2013 and which we summarise above. Subject to any new and compelling evidence arising from this review, we therefore intend to implement the determination as currently drafted, with a one-off adjustment in MPs’ pay to £74,000 and subsequently linking it to changes in average UK earnings for the remainder of this Parliament. The increase would be backdated to 8 May 2015. 9.45am BST Angus Robertson, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, is also saying he would refuse to take the proposed pay rise for MPs.SNP's @AngusRobertson will donate MP pay rise to charity. Labour leadership contenders will too. No wonder No10 submitting fresh IPSA letter 9.45am BST I’d be interested to know what readers think about the candidates for the Labour leadership. I have seen people discussing this BTL for a few days now, but I would like to hear more views because I’m thinking of posting a round-up of reader opinion at some point in the future (if it’s doable and worthwhile).I’m particularly keen to hear from people who are party members and planning to vote, but others are welcome to contribute too. 9.23am BST So I guess Philip Blond won’t be signing the change.org online petition opposing the proposed pay rise for MPs. 9.20am BST Philip Blond, head of the ResPublica thinktank, thinks Ipsa should be paying MPs even more.Well done to @ipsaUK but in order to preserve democracy and make sure Parliament is not just the province of the already wealthy - pay moreIndeed the wish to pay MP's less is a wish to emasculate democracy and deny it to successful talented people https://t.co/wYgIm9DOYXThis inverse biding war by labour & lid dem leadership candidates on MPs pay is deeply depressing:- raising the barriers to political entry 9.13am BST There will be an urgent question in the Commons this morning on health.An Urgent Commons Question has been granted to @andyburnhammp at 1030am to ask Jeremy Hunt for a statement on the NHS 'success regime'. 9.02am BST We start the day with a mini U-turn. Earlier this week Downing Street indicated it would not be writing to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority again re-stating its opposition to the proposed 10% pay rise for MPs. But this morning, with public opposition to the planned pay hike getting stronger, Number 10 has changed its mind, and decided that someone will be putting pen to paper. A source said:We’re writing a letter to Ipsa to reiterate we stand by the detailed submission we had already made to them last year saying we think this rise is wrong.Thursday's Telegraph front page: MPs' pay rise splits Cameron Cabinet #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/WCRvyw3vz7 Continue reading...
 |
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.theguardian.com |
