IFS Zooms In: The Economy Institute for Fiscal Studies

Today, we’re setting the stage for a key moment in UK politics — the upcoming spending review, expected this November. The spending review will set some £600 billion of departmental budgets from April 2025 onwards, and will be a crucial moment for the next government to lay out its priorities and plans for public services. 
How should the incoming government go about doing the next spending review? How can the government make sure they deliver on their priorities? And will they be constrained by the much talked about ‘treasury orthodoxy’?
To help us answer these questions, we're joined by two people who have been at the heart of government - David Gauke, a lawyer and former MP who served in the Treasury under David Cameron and Theresa May’s governments and Giles Wilkes, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and former special adviser to Theresa May and Vince Cable. 
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We often hear about government debt in the headlines. Currently the UK government owes around £2.65 trillion, nearly 100% of UK GDP - the value of all the goods and services produced in the UK in a year.
How has the debt level grown? Should we aspire to reduce the debt? And do we need to worry about high debt to GDP ratios?
Joining us today to answer all these questions and more, is David Miles, Professor of Financial Economics at Imperial College Business School, a member of the OBR Budget Responsibility Committee and former member of the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England.
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In his Spring Budget, the Chancellor announced a 2% cut to National Insurance, amidst other measures on tax and spending.
What will the impact of the measures be? How will it affect living standards? And what choices face the next Parliament?
Joining us today are Helen Miller, Deputy Director at IFS and Ben Zaranko, Senior Research Economist at IFS.
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Since the pandemic, the size the NHS waiting list has been in the headlines almost constantly. At the start of 2023, Rishi Sunak committed to decreasing the size of the waiting list as one of his ‘five priorities’, and since then it has actually gone up. 
So today, we’re going to dive into the NHS waiting list - what is it? How big is it? And is there a credible plan to get it back down?
Joining us to answer those questions are Ben Zaranko and Max Warner, IFS economists who have recently published a report on the NHS waiting list.
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Over recent months, you may have seen local authorities warning that they are facing a funding crisis. Since 2021, six local authorities have declared themselves effectively bankrupt, and many other local authorities have reported that they may soon be forced to do the same.
How did we end up here? Why are local councils facing funding pressures? And what can government do to help them?
Joining us to answer these questions are Tony Travers, a professor in the Department of Government at LSE and expert on local government, and David Phillips, Head of Devolved and Local Government Finance at IFS. 
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Income tax and National Insurance Contributions are our biggest taxes. Together they raise almost half of all tax revenues. 
National Insurance Contributions were cut at the start of the year, but we’re in the middle of a multi-year freeze in tax thresholds that will amount to a tax rise of over £40 billion by the time it’s finished. And these are just the latest in a string of changes in how we tax personal incomes.
From cliff edges and personal allowances, to Scotland's 6-band income tax system and The Beatles' scheme to minimise their tax, we cover all things income tax.
To do that, we're joined by Helen Miller, Deputy Director at IFS and head of our tax sector, and Dan Neidle, a tax lawyer and founder of Tax Policy Associates.
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