Hunt’s tax cuts mean austerity ‘more painful’ than under Osborne, warns IFS

Thinktank says 20bn package of tax cuts would be mostly funded by deep reductions in public spending planned from 2025

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Rishi Sunak's government has set the country on course for a more painful" austerity drive after the next general election than during the decade of belt-tightening under George Osborne, leading economists have warned.

A day after the chancellor's autumn statement, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said Jeremy Hunt's 20bn package of tax cuts was almost entirely funded by swingeing real-terms reductions to public spending planned from 2025.