“Spending on public services in Britain would be higher by £2,500 per person each year if the government matched comparable European levels of funding, an analysis shows today.
The Institute for Public Policy Research found that Britain spends about 40 per cent of GDP on public services, down from 47 per cent in 2010. European spending has also fallen, but comparable EU countries still spend an average of 48 per cent of their GDP on areas such as health, education and welfare, the think tank said.
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden were classed as the comparable countries.
Britain’s tax burden is also lower than the European average. Employee taxes amount to about 11.6 per cent of average income in the UK, compared with 15.4 per cent in the EU.
The total burden of taxation in Britain is 33.3 per cent compared with 41.8 per cent. The figures, from the left-wing think tank, are likely to be seized on by Labour as evidence that its plan to increase taxes to support greater public spending is not as radical as Conservative critics would claim.
Harry Quilter-Pinner, senior research fellow at the institute, said that its report showed that after years of austerity there was now a need to increase public sector spending. “Our neighbours have consistently invested more in welfare and public services and consistently deliver better social outcomes than us,” he said. “We need a fundamental shift in our approach to investment in this country to deliver high-quality social and childcare, a life-long education system, 21st-century healthcare and a properly funded benefits system. Ending austerity must be more than a political soundbite.”
The report also highlighted international rankings by the OECD that it said showed that Britain was lagging behind comparable European countries in social outcomes. These showed that out of 11 countries the UK was ranked ninth for life expectancy and eighth for child poverty.
The group said that since 2010 life expectancy in the UK, which had consistently risen over the previous century, had stopped rising. It added that health inequalities were also significant, with the poorest in society living 8.4 years less than the richest.
The UK did, however, have the second lowest levels of long-term unemployment and lower levels of insecure employment than most of the other countries surveyed.”
Source: The Times (pay wall)
East Devon Watch 