Fears for Bolton following government spending review

Some 1,400 posts will be axed in the wake of the cuts, realising the local authority’s worst fears.

Bolton Council leader Cllr Cliff Morris said: “This is as we had predicted, it is the worst case scenario.”

While Chancellor George Osborne announced that local government spending would be cut by 7.1 per cent each year for the next four years, Cllr Morris said with inflation and a decrease in grants taken into consideration, the cuts would be nearer 40 per cent for the borough.

Union chiefs say that will lead to one in 10 local government posts being lost, a figure which Cllr Morris is not disputing.

He added: “It is smoke and mirrors to suggest that it is 28 per cent over four years because that does not take into account inflation and the grants that Bolton will lose.”

Union leaders last night pledged to continue to fight the savage cuts, the worst since the end of the Second World War.

Bernie Gallagher, secretary of the Unison Bolton Metro branch, said: “Nowhere is going to escape and that includes the NHS, the police force and every other service on which people rely. We will continue to fight for our members because this is not right.”

But Cllr John Walsh, leader of the town’s Conservatives, was more upbeat about the review. He said: “There are a lot of good things in the spending review — the electrification of the rail line through Bolton, the consolidation and protection of benefits for pensioners and freezing the BBC licence fee.

“We warned Cllr Morris that it was premature to speculate and I hope now that all members of the council can sit down and look at how best to work through these cuts.”

As well as huge cuts to council grants, Mr Osborne announced a £7 billion hit on the welfare budget as he took an axe to public spending.

The Chancellor said that departments across Whitehall would face swingeing cuts over the next four years as the government acted to pull the country back "from the brink of bankruptcy".

Delivering the comprehensive spending review, he told the Commons that raising of the state pension age to 66 would be brought forward to 2020, saving £5 billion a year.

The welfare cuts — on top of the £11 billion announced in the emergency Budget in June — include the axing of child benefit for higher rate taxpayers unveiled at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham.

However, he scotched speculation that the he was planning to cut child benefit for children over 16.

Mr Osborne described the package as "tough but fair".

"Today's the day when Britain steps back from the brink, when we confront the bills from a decade of debt," he said.

"To back down now and abandon our plans would be the road to economic ruin. We will stick to the course. We will secure our country's stability. We will not take Britain back to the brink of bankruptcy."

Shadow chancellor Alan Johnson accused the government of taking a "reckless gamble with people's livelihoods" which could wreck the economic recovery.

Amid noisy scenes in the Commons he declared: "We've seen people cheering the deepest cuts to public spending in living memory.

"For some members opposite this is their ideological objective, this is what they came into politics for."

Mr Osborne confirmed that spending on health would be ring-fenced and overseas aid would be protected.

He also confirmed the cuts would mean an estimated 490,000 public sector jobs would be lost nationally over the next four years, while £1.8 billion will be cut from public sector pensions.

Education, however, was among the winners with a real increase in money for schools for each of the next four years. The schools budget will rise from £35 billion to £39 billion.

Total health spending will rise in real terms from £104 billion this year to £114 billion by the end of the next four years.

Mr Osborne pledged to maintain universal benefits for pensioners including free eye tests, prescription charges, bus passes, TV licences for the over 75s and winter fuel payments.