Jeremy Hunt announces plan to shrink civil service

Receive free Conservative Party UK updates

We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Conservative Party UK news every morning.

Jeremy Hunt, UK chancellor, has announced a £1bn plan to squeeze civil service numbers.

Hunt told the Tory conference in Manchester he would freeze recruitment to the civil service, which he said was “the best in the world”.

He said: “Even after the pandemic is over we have 66,000 more civil servants than before.”

The chancellor said he would freeze new hires and then begin to reduce the size of Whitehall to pre-Covid levels, a plan he said would save £1bn next year.

Hunt added that fighting inflation was his top priority rather than tax cuts, telling the conference: “Nothing hurts families more.”

Referring to recent reductions in inflation, he said: “The plan is working and now we must see it through, just as Margaret Thatcher did many years ago.”

In a bullish speech, Hunt said: “To all the pessimists and declinists who have been talking us down: we say don’t bet against Britain. It’s been tried before and it never works.”