McLoughlin's thirty per cent cut targets "low-value DfT programmes"

The cuts offered up by transport secretary and three other cabinet members average 30% over four years and will include the closure of "low-value programmes," the Chancellor confirmed today.

As Transportxtra reported this morning, whilst other members of the cabinet are fighting cuts at the eleventh hour, Patrick McLoughlin is one of four of the 20 departments to have agreed to the cuts demanded by George Osborne over the summer. Osborne said in a speech that the savings would be achieved by further efficiencies in departments, and ending those programmes that are "low-value".

He said the test of all spending decisions in his Comprehensive Spending Review a week on Wednesday would be whether they would "increase the economic security of working people, or not," whether they would "extend opportunity, or not" and whether they would "enhance our national security, or not?"

He also underlined that the agreed savings were for resource, not capital budgets - so potentially targeting revenue support for highway maintenance and for buses - reiterating his support for £100bn of capital investment over the life of this Parliament, adding: "We will continue to invest in the things that make our economy more productive."