Tory-Lib Dem coalition government brings forward cuts

Britain’s first coalition government since the Second World War will fast-track £6bn of cuts to come in the current financial year in order to cut the public deficit.

The move, proposed by the Tories in the election campaign, and compromised upon by the Liberal Democrats, will raise inevitable concerns that cuts will hit frontline children’s services despite politicians’ assurances and claims that savings will target “back office” functions.

The Liberal Democrats have secured five Cabinet posts in the historic Tory-Lib Dem coalition government under Prime Minister David Cameron — including their leader Nick Clegg in the post of Deputy Prime Minister — and up to 20 government ministerial posts in total.

Among their Cabinet members, the Lib Dems’ principal spokesman for children David Laws — a key figure in the parties’ negotiations to form the coalition — has been strongly linked with becoming Schools Secretary, prompting speculation that the Tories’ hitherto chief schools spokesman Michael Gove would become Home Secretary. 

It is unclear whether the Department for Children, Schools and Families will remain in its current form or exactly what shape other Whitehall departments will take.

Andrew Lansley has been confirmed as Health Secretary and George Osborne as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

On specific areas of policy, the coalition has agreed to bring in the pupil premium to benefit disadavantaged children, a commitment in both parties’ manifestos, but more comprehensively backed by the Lib Dems. Tory plans for state-funded schools to be allowed to be free from local authority control also remain intact. 

Child poverty campaigners will take satisfaction that the Lib Dems have secured their wish to raise the income tax threshold to £10,000, which will be phased in over the lifetime of this parliament. This would take more families out of paying income tax althogether. The planned rise in national insurance contributions will also be scrapped, as had been proposed by the Tories.

But the Lib Dems have negotiated an opt-out on the Conservatives’ plans to recognise marriage in the tax system, meaning their MPs will abstain on the issue in parliament, making it more difficult for the Tories to enact.

There will also be a wide-ranging repeal bill, being dubbed as a “freedom bill”, to scrap a raft of civil liberties and criminal justice legislation brought in by Labour. 

In his maiden speech as Prime Minister amid a throng of assembled media outside 10 Downing Street yesterday evening, Cameron said the government would be “built on the values of freedom, fairness and responsibility.”

Addressing his party at 12.40am on Wednesday, Clegg pledged to bring about a “fairer start for every child in this country … fairness is at the heart of everything we do.”

 The coalition will need to finalise details of its legislative programme in time for the Queen’s Speech on 25 May. An emergency budget is also expected within 50 days.

Details of other ministerial postholders are yet to be confirmed. What role Tory children’s spokesman Tim Loughton, families spokeswoman Maria Miller or former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith might or might not play in the coalition government should become clear later in the day.

Gordon Brown resigned as Prime Minister and Labour leader earlier yesterday evening after coalition talks between the Lib Dems and Labour — and involving then-Children’s Secretary Ed Balls — collapsed.