Thursday 17 June 2010

Coalition cuts £2bn in projects and suspends others valued at £8.5bn

The government has cancelled or frozen £10.5bn worth of projects that had been announced in the dying days of the Labour government.  An £80m investment to build parts for nuclear power stations in Sheffield and the flagship Labour policy of free swimming for children and pensioners will be scrapped while work on new libraries, hospitals, job schemes for young people will be suspended.  The government said it was forced into difficult cuts by the "irresponsible planning" of its predecessors, but Labour accused the coalition of being ideologically driven to reduce the size of government and its involvement in stimulating the economy.


Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the treasury, announced that £2bn worth of projects would be scrapped following a review of spending. They include the £80m loan to Sheffield Forgemasters, the £450m North Tees and Hartlepool hospital and the government's £25m contribution to a new Stonehenge visitor centre.  A further £8.5bn of projects are suspended including the libraries modernisation programme, the Sheffield retail quarter, a Department of Health funded wellbeing centre for Leeds and a new magistrates court for Birmingham. The bulk of the potential savings comes from nearly £7bn worth of defence ministry contracts for new search and rescue helicopters.  Alexander revealed that he had identified a £1bn black hole made up of Labour pledges that either depended on unspecified underspending in other areas of government or on drawing on government reserves.

Download the full list as a spreadsheet here.  You sad bastard.