If you were to plot a line for spending by government departments in real terms, from 2009/10 over the period of this Parliament through to the end of the period covered by the Autumn Statement in 2019/20, you would see a significant, but measured, decline.
If however, you were to separate this graph out into two lines, one for protected areas of spending and one for unprotected, you would see something very different.
While, as expected, protected areas would stay the same more or less, the decline of unprotected areas would become more of steep and drastic descent.
