United Kingdom government austerity programme

The United Kingdom government deficit reduction programme is a series of sustained reductions in public spending, intended to reduce the government budget deficit and the welfare state in the United Kingdom. However, the NHS and education were "ringfenced" and protected from spending cuts. In 2009, the term "age of austerity" was popularized by British Conservative leader David Cameron in his keynote speech to the Conservative Party forum in Cheltenham on 26 April 2009, in which he committed to end years of what he characterized excessive government spending.

The austerity programme was initiated in 2010 by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government. Its original stated goal was to, "achieve [a] cyclically-adjusted current balance by the end of the rolling, five-year forecast period". At the June 2010 budget, the end of the forecast period was 2015–16. However, in a speech in 2013 David Cameron indicated that his government had no intention of increasing public spending once the structural deficit had been eliminated and proposed that the public spending reduction be made permanent. In 2014 the Treasury extended the proposed austerity period until at least 2018. By 2016 the Chancellor George Osborne was aiming to deliver a budget surplus by 2020, but following the result of the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016, he expressed the opinion that this goal was no longer achievable. His successor as Chancellor, Philip Hammond, retained the aim of a balanced budget but abandoned plans to eliminate the deficit by 2020. In Hammond's first Autumn statement in 2016 there was no mention of austerity, and some commentators have concluded that the austerity program has ended.

United Kingdom austerity policies have received pointed criticism from Leftist politicians and economists, and have prompted anti-austerity movements among citizens more generally.

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