George Osborne’s budget received a chilly verdict from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) today, which attacked the chancellor for his silence on £10 billion of planned welfare cuts and said coalition tax and benefit reforms had hit the poorest most.
While applauding Mr Osborne for resisting the temptation to offer lots of pre-election goodies, the think-tank was also critical of two of his most eye-catching measures, help-to-buy Isas and the cut in the lifetime pension allowance.
The chancellor’s fiscal credibility was based partly on his ability to find £12 billion of welfare cuts announced two years ago, the IFS said, but apart from cuts to working-age benefits that might raise £2 billion, he had given no clues to what else might have to be