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Details on where Osborne's axe will fall

PLANS to rebuild crumbling schools will be axed, new road and train projects cancelled and the Armed Forces slashed, a News of the World investigation has revealed.

COUNCILS will be ordered to find billions of pounds of savings.

They will pull the plug on plans for new roads such as bypasses. Town halls will be sold off and councils will merge.

Social care will be savaged with cuts in help for the elderly to wash, dress and eat. And scores of care homes will be sold off.

Services like youth workers and teen pregnancy schemes will be axed and council staff replaced by volunteers. And councils will scrap schemes to give kids free school meals.

In EDUCATION Labour's plans to rebuild 700 dilapidated schools will be scrapped, saving more than £1billion. Schools will axe breakfast and after-school clubs.

Although HEALTH spending is more protected, the VAT rise will cost the NHS £300million a year which will have to be found from savings elsewhere.

Rises

Health chiefs will also look to scrap promised automatic annual pay rises.

Huge cuts will also be made in TRANSPORT. Officials have been told by Transport Secretary Philip Hammond the pain will be spread equally between road and rail.

But rail fares will be pushed up and Mr Hammond is set to axe a £7.5billion order for 1,400 train carriages to replace the ageing InterCity Express fleet.

Big savings will also have to be found in the DEFENCE budget. The MoD is looking at one option that would see ground troop numbers cut by 20 per cent, troop formations from 98 to 80, major vessels cut from 57 to 45 and aircraft numbers from 760 to 550-600.

Billions more will have to be saved from Britain's £213billion-a-year BENEFITS bill.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is planning a massive simplification of the entire system.

 

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