Political parties are keeping voters “in the dark” over their spending plans, independent researchers have warned.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the electorate has been left with an incomplete picture on both the scale and composition of likely spending cuts and tax increases.
With each of the four main parties pledging to reduce the national debt, running at 5% of GDP last year – the IFS looked at individual party manifestos.
It concluded the Conservatives will make the biggest cut in borrowing at 5.2% but this would require “some large spending cuts or tax increases”.
It delivered a blow to the SNP stating “there was a considerable disconnect” between rhetoric and total spending plans. The IFS said that while its plans implied a slower pace of austerity than the other three parties, cuts would go on for longer.
Labour were “considerably more vague” about how much it would borrow. IFS said the party’s pledge to achieve a surplus was consistent with a 3.6% reduction in borrowing – the same as the SNP – “requiring little in the way of spending cuts or tax increases after this year”.
The Liberal Democrats were “more transparent” about their overall fiscal plans through to 2017-18. Its aim for tightening the budget was larger than Labour but smaller than the Tories at 3.9%.
Carl Emmerson, IFS deputy director, said: “There are genuinely big differences between the main parties’ fiscal plans. The electorate has a real choice, although it can at best see only the broad outlines of that choice.”
The IFS said despite planning for more austerity, the Conservatives’ detailed tax plans amounted to a “net giveaway”.
Labour’s plans included some “small net tax increases”. Debt would be £90billion more in 2019-20 than under the Tories, heralding “higher debt interest payments”.
The Liberal Democrats had “failed to spell out” details of how savings would be achieved, relying heavily on unspecified measures to reduce tax avoidance and evasion.
The SNP’s tax takeaways were offset by its tax giveaways, and it would “increase the generosity of the social security system. As a result total spending would increase while departmental spending would be “broadly frozen” between 2014-15 and 2019-20.
“Their stated plans do not necessarily match their anti-austerity rhetoric,” the IFS said.
“Unfortunately, the electorate is at best armed with only an incomplete picture of what they can expect from any of these four parties.”