David Cameron says that despite the severity of the cuts he has personally insisted they should be fair and that those with the most money bear the biggest burden. He said:

As before, it falls to us to clear up after the Labour Party. I have insisted that we do it in a way that is fair. You can't cut a deficit the size of ours without everyone making a sacrifice. But those with the most money are bearing the biggest burden. We've imposed a permanent levy on the banks, getting them to pay more every year than Labour did in one year.

Is this true?

Strictly speaking, yes. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has done an impact assessment with each budget and the comprehensive spending review and its analysis shows the richest 2% - those earning in excess of £100,000 - have lost the most.

However, for the bottom 90% the pattern is that the poorer you are, the bigger your net loss from the tax and benefit systems.

James Browne, the author of much of the IFS work on this, says of Cameron's claim:

That is true in itself if you are just looking at tax and benefit changes. If you're also looking at spending cuts to public services, which the poorest people access the most, it's certainly more debatable but we don't have the analysis to show that to be true. The wider view is that loss decreases the higher up the income distribution you go. The richest 2% are the ones who lose the most on average. There is a regressive impact overall within the bottom 90% or earners.

That regressive impact is shown neatly in this graph from Brown's last analysis after the March budget.

Verdict



Cameron can claim that the very richest 2%, those who earn more than £100,00 a year, have paid the most for the cuts. The pattern of the impact of the cuts among the other nine deciles shows a clear regressive impact. The poorer you are, the bigger the brunt of the cuts you'll have to bear.