Episode
How could the Chancellor cut spending?
- Podcast
- IFS Zooms In: The Economy
- Published
- Nov 20, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 2480
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://ifs.org.uk/podcasts-explainers-and-calculators/podcasts
- Audio
- https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/5ea004d9fbcc383829c71657/e/691deadea8b3b3aea0e164ce/media.mp3
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/ifs-zooms-in-the-economy-638796/episodes/how-could-the-chancellor-cut-spending/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/ifs-zooms-in-the-economy-638796/how-could-the-chancellor-cut-spending.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
As the Chancellor prepares her Budget, attention is turning not just to how she could raise more tax - but how she might cut spending. Where does the government actually spend its money? Why is it so difficult to reduce that spending in practice? And what would it take to genuinely pare back the size of the state? Helen Miller is joined by IFS colleagues Ben Zaranko and Tom Waters to unpack the realities behind public spending. They look at how the government’s budget is divided across welfare, public services, and investment; how pressures such as an ageing population, defence commitments and struggling services constrain choices; and whether efficiencies or productivity gains could ever plug the gap. Become a member: https://ifs.org.uk/individual-membership Find out more: https://ifs.org.uk/podcasts-explainers-and-calculators/podcasts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.