the austerity programme was initiated in 2010 by the conservative and liberal democrat coalition government. in his june 2010 budget speech, the chancellor george osborne identified two goals. the first was that the structural current budget deficit would be eliminated to "achieve [a] cyclically-adjusted current balance by the end of the rolling, five-year forecast period". the second was that national debt as a percentage of gdp would be falling. the government intended to achieve both of its goals through substantial reductions in public expenditure. this was to be achieved by a combination of public spending reductions and tax increases amounting to £110 billion. the end of the forecast period was 2015–16.