Chris Leslie MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, responding to spending changes announced by the Chancellor, said:

“Nobody disagrees with sensible efficiencies because spending does need to fall in unprotected areas, but why is the Chancellor hiding the detail? George Osborne needs to  spell out urgently who is paying the price in this chaotic process. This is a shambolic approach to planning public services, ripping up his own ‘long-term plan’ set out just weeks ago in the March Budget. Savings need to be made through proper reform not short-term salami slicing.

“The Tories’ botched privatisation of Royal Mail in the last Parliament short-changed taxpayers by hundreds of millions of pounds. The Government now needs to explain how it has learned the lessons of last time so that the same mistakes aren’t simply repeated.”

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