Nick Clegg launches A Better Politics for Less

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg today launched sweeping proposals to significantly reduce the cost of politics and central government.

The proposals include:

• Cutting the number of government departments to 14 (saving £314.2m per year)
• Halving the number of departmental spin doctors (£7.44m)
• Culling or merging 90 quangos and capping all senior salaries at the Prime Minister's wage (£1.182bn)
• Cutting the number of ministers to 73 and freezing their salaries (£1.88m)
• Abolishing taxpayer-funded salaries for the leader of the Opposition and party whips (£0.96m)

Nick Clegg said:

"As a country we will have to make some big decisions about how to balance the books.

"The best way to cut the cost of Government is through real change in how politics is done. As well as not spending billions on wasteful databases and outdated missile systems, we politicians must also cut our cost to the taxpayer.

"Central government in Whitehall is too big, too powerful and too expensive. We could save billions by scrapping entire Government departments and culling quangos.

"Doing politics differently and saving money means dismantling Labour's spin machine by halving the number of government press officers and making political parties pay for their own special advisers.

"The nearly £2bn savings in our proposals could be invested in public services and would be enough to renovate 200 schools every year."