ED Balls had the chance to attack George Osborne’s plans to make sweeping public spending cuts – but the Shadow Chancellor said instead that he would not reverse anything in the Tories’ Budget.

Those who argue there is little to choose between the two main Unionist parties were given further ammunition yesterday when Balls said in a radio interview that he would implement all of Osborne’s flagship policies.

“I thought it was quite empty,” he said of the Budget. “I don’t think there was too much in it. There’s nothing from yesterday

I need to reverse.”

Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts suggest the Conservatives’ plans will lead to a “rollercoaster” for public services, with the size of cuts more than doubling over the first two years before spending increases over the following two.

Balls said he was committed to a “sensible” mix of spending cuts and tax increases on the wealthy, but repeatedly refused to say where all of the savings in public spending would be made. “What I will reverse is a plan for deeper spending cuts in the next three years than the last five,” he said.

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon responded at First Minister’s Questions yesterday: “Is there any wonder that people are disillusioned with Labour?” she said. “There is nothing in the Budget he would reverse ... nothing in the Budget of a right-wing Tory chancellor that a new Labour Chancellor would choose to reverse? Really? There is plenty I’d like to reverse, including the austerity cuts which will be deeper than ever before. Ed Balls has just made our case for us.”

Balls insisted that the personal tax-free allowance level would stay at £11,000. When he was asked if he would reverse the changes to savings tax, he replied: “Of course not”. He went on to describe Osborne’s new ISA home-buyers policy as “an interesting idea”, adding: “We are absolutely not going to reverse it.”

Stephen Boyd, assistant secretary at Scottish union body the STUC said Balls was “wrong” to back Osborne’s policy announcements. He said: “The policies the Chancellor announced yesterday regarding assistance to savers and help to buy ISAs are bad policies, which have quite major distributional impacts. The Institute for Fiscal Studies showed today these policies benefit the wealthier to a greater extent, so we think this is bad policy.

“Things like the help-to-buy ISAs probably have about an 80 to 90 per cent deadweight cost as you are helping people who would be able to fund themselves, meaning it is a waste of significant amounts of money.

“These are measures, if there is to be a new Labour government, which they should address in their very first Budget statement.”

“If Labour think fiscal consolidation must continue, then it must be balanced much more towards tax rises for those who are able to afford them, rather than these kind of giveaways to already wealthy people.”

Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy said: “When it comes to Tory cuts, George Osborne’s Budget confirmed what we already knew – that the worst is yet to come. The Office for Budget Responsibility is clear, yesterday’s Budget will mean more cuts to public spending and more austerity if the Tories are re-elected in May.

“After the election the Tories have promised cuts to public spending that are four times deeper than this year. Every week will see a month of cuts.

“Those are the type of spending cuts which would scar Scotland for a generation.”

Osborne yesterday denied his party was planning to speed up the rate of cuts to public services. He said: “That is not actually the approach, as Conservatives, that we will take. We want to take a more balanced approach and we would not put all the cuts in government departments, as the OBR forecast shows.”

SNP Deputy Leader and Treasury spokesman Stewart Hosie MP said: “Under Osborne’s plans – and now Labour’s plans – there will be additional cuts to welfare, tax credits and public-sector pensions, with overall cuts set to be far larger than anything we have seen over the past five years.

“Those hoping a Labour government would offer an alternative to the Tories will be disappointed – but we already knew a majority of Labour MPs voted recently in the House of Commons hand in hand with the Tories for £30 billion of extra cuts in the next government.”