The pain to come

Potential spending squeeze identified.

Budget cuts at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills could range from 9 per cent under a Conservative government to 4 per cent or 5 per cent if Labour come to power, according to Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Johnson painted a “picture of considerable uncertainty” for higher education, depending on which party is elected. Were the current coalition to remain in power, George Osborne’s budget speech suggested that departmental budgets would take an £18 billion hit, with the remainder of his £30.5 billion target absorbed by welfare cuts and a crackdown on tax avoidance.