Scholarship News

London, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg questioned on Thursday an analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that concluded the $121.5 billion (81 billion pounds) in budget cuts made by the coalition government would hit the poor the hardest.

The cuts were announced Wednesday by Chancellor George Osborne in his spending review.

The IFS warned that families will take the brunt of cuts and most secondary students will lose as Whitehall departments face cuts deeper than the original plan by the previous Labor-led government.

According to the think tank, a $3.75 billion (2.5 billion pounds) pupil premium would not compensate for the rising school numbers and other reductions in the education budget, which would result in funding reductions for 60 percent of primary school pupils and 87 percent of secondary school students.

Carl Emmerson, acting director of IFS, said the tax and benefit changes made by the coalition government are regressive instead of fair as claimed by the Tory- and Liberal Democrat-led government.

Clegg insisted the coalition provided a cash increase per student, which is on top of the 2.5 billion pounds premium for deprived children. He said the think tank failed to take into account the impact of public spending to improve social mobility.

The deputy prime minister said at the end of four years, the coalition government would spend 5 percent more of national income than the Labor government did under former prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He added the government would also employ 200,000 more people in the public sector.

However, before that happens, 500,000 public sector workers would lose their jobs under Britain’s worst spending cuts as the coalition government struggles to erase the largest budget deficit on record.

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