Healey under fire on spending plans as UK faces ‘worst decade for living standards on record’

John Healey is facing intense scrutiny over his plans to tighten public spending around 2030, as leading economists warned the Labour government is on course to revive an austerity programme while overseeing the worst decade of living standards on record.  Budget-crunchers at two leading economics think tanks have offered scathing assessments on the state of living standards and a myriad of spending pressures looming over the government that are likely to mean some departments are set for drastic cuts at next year’s Spending Review. Next year’s crucial event will set out spending plans for departmental budgets in the three years after, overlapping with the deadline for an election to be called. Healey is fighting back against criticism of his Budget, telling broadcasters the government was prepared to “control spending”. The Resolution Foundation said the Chancellor used the Budget yesterday to increase departmental budgets by £9bn in the current Spending Review period, whic