IFS outlines 'four big decisions' for Spending Review

03 Jun 2025

Ahead of the 2025 Spending Review on 11 June, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has outlined four 'big decisions' for the government to make.

The Spending Review allows the government to set day-to-day departmental budgets over the next three years. Ahead of the latest Review, the IFS warned that tough choices are 'unavoidable'.

It said achieving stated objectives in some areas will require 'real-terms cuts elsewhere'. The four decisions outlined by the IFS include how much to spend on the NHS; whether to increase defence spending; where to cut public spending; and where the government should focus investment.

Bee Boileau, Research Economist at the IFS, commented: 'At the Spending Review, the government faces some unavoidably tough choices, particularly as after turning on the spending taps last autumn, the flow of additional funding is now set to slow to more of a trickle.

'Take capital spending: government investment is set to be sustained at historically high levels in the coming years, but most of the increase happened last year and this year, and it looks as if all of the remaining increase in funding over this parliament has already been allocated to defence.'