Alistair Darling, chancellor of the exchequer
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The role of the chancellor of the exchequer is to set the government’s budget. Budgets are financial plans, and the government’s budget is the state’s tax and expenditure plans for the year ahead. Governments need to raise taxes from households and firms in order to finance the provision of public services, such as healthcare, education, defence and pensions.
In November 2009, in his pre-budget report, the chancellor Alistair Darling announced that government spending for the year 2009–10 was expected to total £676 billion. The breakdown of this expenditure is shown in Figure 1.
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