Boris Johnson's grand replacement for the bendy bus, which will run from Hampstead to Pimlico, was billed as the greenest, cleanest in the world but does it live up to its promise?

On the upper deck of the No 38, the passengers giving their verdict on the Boris bus might equally be discussing the man behind it, the mayor elected on precious few promises other than to rid London of his predecessor's bendy buses.

"It doesn't make sense," claims one commuter. Another counters: "It's a nice upgrade – and it makes you a little bit happier when you see the new, shiny one coming along."

A few prototypes have run in London since 2012, but now the Dalek-like visage of the New Bus for London is to flood the No 24 prestige route from Hampstead through Trafalgar Square to Pimlico with upgraded models – the first full service to start making Boris Johnson's grand, costly bus dream a widespread reality.

The 28 buses are the first instalment of 600 to be delivered over the next three years – the culmination of Johnson's rallying cry in 2007. As a putative Conservative challenger to Ken Livingstone, he tapped into nostalgia for the Routemaster for his first policy of note.

Critics say the bus has come with a hefty price tag and high running costs. They question the wisdom of the open rear entrance, the boarding platform that became emblematic of fun, leaping Boris versus dour Ken, worried about access for all. And they question the environmental credentials of the bus heralded as the greenest yet.

Early jibes that the £11m budget brought just eight prototypes proved unfair, but there is no question that the bus has cost more than envisaged – exploding Johnson's pledge not to exceed the bill for existing hybrid diesel-electric buses. Instead of the £305,000 off-the-peg equivalent, the price escalated to £354,500 for each bus – unfortunate timing when London has to make the case to preserve its transport budget in the chancellor's spending review. Transport for London (TfL) claims this fixed price for the entire order equates to £326,000 at today's prices, once inflation and leasing costs are factored in. Conductors will cost about £62,000 for each bus, or £37m extra a year.

So is it worth it? The mayor, naturally, rhapsodises about his bus, recently telling a city hall audience he would "clean up the air with a wonderful new bus, the cleanest, greenest in the world".

But the New Bus's case is best made by two champions from a very un-Boris background. The first route-24 bus out of Pimlico garage at 6am this Saturday will be driven by Sir Peter Hendy, London's transport commissioner, and Leon Daniels, head of surface transport at TfL – two veteran bus lovers whose Christmases have all come at once from a mayor brash enough to fork out for such a gleaming, expensive toy.

"It's fabulous," said Hendy. "It's a lovely vehicle, very comfortable, popular, well-designed – everyone likes it. They love it."

Daniels has admitted to having waited four decades for something like this – a bespoke bus, built to a high specification, just for London. While it retains the Routemaster's curves and its rear platform – open only when a conductor is aboard in the daytime – three doorways and two staircases mean more rapid boarding and access for wheelchairs and pushchairs.

Fuel consumption and emissions have not, on the prototypes, been as impressive as expected. But Daniels insists that results from the few on route 38 are not a valid benchmark for what the bus will achieve when fully operational. "In any event, it's the cleanest and most compliant bus we have."

London assembly members are yet to be convinced, and Greens and Liberal Democrats point out that the bus will not even meet the mayor's 2020 target for an ultra-low emission zone, claiming that Johnson's "obsession" has locked the capital into today's diesel technology.

Hendy shrugs. "Technology is changing. They won't be the best or the only ones [on the road] at the end of 14 years, [their London lifespan] but they will be a very decent bus."

With Treasury eyeballs on London's budget, TfL is at pains to stress the economic benefits and jobs sustained in a nationwide supply chain for the buses, built by Wrightbus in Northern Ireland. Johnson is well versed in reeling off suppliers around the UK: engines from Darlington, seats from Telford, moquette from Huddersfield, wheelchair ramps from Hertfordshire, and so on.

Whatever the economics, it's hard to escape the fundamental reason why two genteel swaths of London will awake this weekend to find a new bus linking their boroughs: the Routemaster's open platform and all it symbolised. As Johnson puts it, the ability to "hop on, hop off – fall over, should fate intervene in that way …"

Livingstone has no regrets over the Routemaster, despite the political fallout – he had, notoriously, said that no one but a "dehumanised moron" would scrap it. He happily admits having once enjoyed jumping on and off the moving bus. Getting older, and becoming a father, changed his view. "If you're old, disabled, with kids or heavy shopping, it's impossible … You can't expect to run a bus fleet where 10% of Londoners can't physically board."

Most of all, he thinks Johnson, in pursuing a populist flourish, has missed an opportunity to bring in something cheaper that would have really tackled pollution and air quality in London: electric buses. "The technology is now there for a proper electric bus. If I'd won I'd have ordered 9,000. The manufacturers are waiting for a city to place an order to get them going."

Back on the route-38 prototype, Dom Harwood, 28, a composer, continues to enthuse about the hybrid bus, with additional conductors creating jobs: "Two people rather than one."

Even the sceptic, ceramic designer Emmely Dovaston, 22, says she prefers travelling on the quieter, cooler new bus but is dubious about the cost of the conductors, and points to fares that have inflated 50% under Johnson. "I'd rather have cheap travel. At the end of the day, it's a bus."

Facts and figures

Cost

New Bus £354,000

Hybrids c £305,000

Fuel consumption

New Bus 6.74mpg

Hybrid 6.1mpg

Emissions

New Bus 2.048g/km of NOx

690.23g/km of CO2

0.012g/km of PM

Average hybrid 7.7g/km NOx

864g/km CO2

0.048g/km of PM

Passengers per bus

New Bus 87 (25 standing)

Hybrid 84 (23 standing)

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Chancellor tells bankers in Mansion House speech time is right to sell bailed-out bank back to private sector

George Osborne has signalled he is ready to start the sell-off of the taxpayer's stake in Lloyds Banking Group, but said he is to consider whether to break up the Royal Bank of Scotland, in a move that could delay the bailed out bank's return to the private sector.

In his annual speech to City grandees at Mansion House on Wednesday night, the chancellor said he was "actively considering options for share sales in Lloyds", in which the government has a 39% stake. Speculation is mounting that a partial sell-off of the state's Lloyds stake could take place within months.

But he played down expectations of an immediate "Tell Sid" style privatisation, as implemented by the Conservatives during the 1980s.

Big City institutions are likely to be offered a chunk of shares first as an "institutional placement is likely to be the most effective way of managing risk and getting value". He added: "And for later share sales, we will consider a retail offering to the general public."

The chancellor also used his strongest language yet to signal his confidence that the economy is recovering nearly five years after the banking crisis forced taxpayers to pump £65bn into the two banks. He said: "We are moving from rescue to recovery. But while Britain has left intensive care, we still need to secure the recovery – and make sure we continue to treat the ailments that brought us low in the first place."

Osborne told top bankers and City figures assembled at Mansion House that the move to a share sell-off was a sign of this recovery, but he refused to set out a time table. He stressed that bailed-out banks needed to support the economy through more lending to businesses and that a sell-off must generate an acceptable return for the taxpayer.

Osborne was speaking hours after the parliamentary commission on banking standards, chaired by Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie, called on the government to consider an RBS break-up and introduce new rules to jail bankers for "reckless misconduct".

Both those ideas were embraced by the government on Wednesday. David Cameron told MPs the financial services banking reform bill would be amended to introduce a new criminal offence for reckless misconduct, while Osborne used the cover of the commission's report to change his view on an RBS break-up. Only four months ago he had appeared to reject a break-up, but he said last night that "with hindsight I think splitting RBS into a good bank and bad bank was probably what should have happened in 2008".

Osborne added: "That is with hindsight. I wasn't in office. I didn't suggest it opposition. And I'm not criticising my predecessor [Alistair Darling] who had to act quickly in a desperate situation."

Despite Osborne's caution on the timescale for a sell off the Lloyds stake, he said the government was "actively considering options for share sales in Lloyds". Big City institutions are likely to be offered a chunk of shares first as an "institutional placement is likely to be the most effective way of managing risk and getting value". He added: "And for later share sales, we will consider a retail offering to the general public." On the 81% stake in RBS, bought for £45bn in 2008 and 2009 to stop the Edinburgh-based bank collapsing, Osborne said the sale was "some way off", despite the resignation of the bank's boss Stephen Hester last week in a move intended to speed up a sell-off.

Any privatisation will be delayed by the review to look at whether a "bad bank" should be set up to house the Ulster Bank subsidiary and UK commercial property loans granted by RBS before its bailout.

However, Osborne took steps last night that the City regards as essential to kick off an RBS share sale by announcing talks to remove a special share – known as a dividend access share – put into RBS at the time of its bailout which prevents the bank paying dividends. It is estimated that the bank will have to pay the government as much as £2bn to buy the share.

External advisers will be appointed to conduct the three-month review of RBS.

The chancellor stressed that no more taxpayer money would be pumped into the bank. The review may also be seen as a victory for Sir Mervyn King, who has been calling for a break-up of RBS.

In his last speech as governor of the Bank of England, King told the Mansion House audience: "I welcome your announcement that Lloyds Banking Group will be returned to private hands soon. And I very much support your plans for a full review of the structure of RBS."

Banks, he said, needed to make a real contribution to the economy: "It must be time for decisive action".

King, who will be replaced by Canadian Mark Carney at the end of the month, said there were "clear signs of recovery in the UK, albeit modest, under way". But he appeared far less confident about the strength of the economy, saying "the need to support the recovery remains".

Osborne's upbeat language on the economy was a careful attempt to avoid the ridicule that one of his predecessors, Lord Lamont, had faced in 1991 after claiming "green shoots of economic spring" were appearing in the middle of a recession.

Other aspects of the banking commission report were accepted on Wednesday. A study of competition in the small business sector was launched while Cameron also voiced support for the commission's recommendation to force bankers to wait up to 10 years for bonuses.

At prime minister's questions Ed Miliband seized on figures from the Office for National Statistics, which showed a 64% increase in bonuses over the past year, to attack the prime minister for giving bankers a tax cut. The cut in the top rate of income tax from 50p to 45p was introduced in April. Cameron said bonuses were a fifth of the size they were under Labour. Miliband retorted: "He cannot deny the figures I read out to him. He doesn't even know the facts. Bonuses are up so that people can take advantage of his massive tax cut."

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Reporting on G8 summit, Cameron places strongest emphasis yet on political solution but refuses to rule out arming rebels

David Cameron has said he will not recklessly take Britain into a military escalation in Syria, putting his strongest emphasis yet on a political solution to the crisis as he came under pressure from his own backbenchers and Labour not to supply weapons to the Syrian rebels.

Cameron was reporting back to the Commons from the G8 summit in Loch Erne on Syria and agreements to attack corporate tax evasion, which he claimed were now "written into the DNA of future G8 summits for many years to come".

In exchanges lasting nearly 90 minutes, Cameron rejected a role for Iran at a Syrian peace conference and refused to rule out providing arms to the rebels before that peace conference.

But he told MPs: "There is no military victory to be won and all our efforts must be focused on the ultimate goal of a political solution.

"We will not take any major actions without first coming to this House, but we cannot simply ignore this continuing slaughter."

He added that there was a danger in Britain accepting the argument put forward by the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, that the only alternatives to his rule were extremism and terrorism.

He acknowledged there were extremists in the Syrian opposition, saying they posed a threat to the west, but he said the west should stand for democracy and freedom.

He said the immediate task in Syria was for the Americans and Russians to sort out the delegations that would attend the peace conference. He again insisted Assad could have no future role, and said the summit had managed to persuade Russia not to draw back from its support for a transitional government with full executive powers.

The G8 summit communique made no mention of Assad's future role, due to disagreements between the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the west, but Britain privately believes he is not totally committed to Assad and instead wants to ensure that Syria does not become an ungoverned space.

The prime minister claimed the G8 summit had made progress on Syria by reaffirming its commitment to a peace conference and by requiring Assad to give UN weapons inspectors unrestricted access to establish the facts on the use of chemical weapons by regime forces or anyone else.

Cameron rejected Iran's involvement, saying the country had never accepted the principle of a transitional government in Syria, and adding that he wanted to limit the conference to key players within Syria.

Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, claimed the summit had failed to achieve Cameron's stated objective of providing "a moment of clarity".

Labour's former Northern Ireland secretary Peter Hain urged Cameron not to set preconditions about Assad's involvement. "In a search for a political solution, can I just caution him in his apparent insistence on a precondition. Northern Ireland shows preconditions do not work," Hain said.

"We both share exactly the same view of the hideous nature of Assad's barbarism, but if you're insisting that he can't come to the conference and that he can't play any subsequent role, I just caution him that this conference may never happen."

The prime minister told MPs that 30 jurisdictions had now signed agreements on an automatic exchange of information over tax evasion. He claimed Britain's overseas territories and Crown dependencies had made decisions that would realise an extra £1bn in revenues for the Treasury. He also claimed that every member of the G8 had committed to action plans that would introduce central registries on benefical ownership.

"This agenda has now, I believe, been written into the DNA of the G8 and G20 summits, I hope for many years to come," he said.

Asked if Britain backed public registries of companies' beneficial ownership, or registries open only to tax authorities, he said: "There are strong arguments for it to be public."

But he added: "The point at which one says one's own registry will be public, one gives up rather a lot of leverage over other countries we might want to encourage to do that at the same time".

He also said: "It is important to take the business community that believes in responsible behaviour with us on this journey of greater transparency and fairness. To be fair, the CBI has been supportive of this agenda, so there is nothing to fear from a consultation where we try to take people with us on this important progress."

But he insisted he had managed to make the issue of corporate taxation a mainstream issue on the agenda of future G8 meetings.

"Frankly, tax transparency and beneficial ownership were academic issues that were discussed in lofty academic circles, but they are now kitchen table issues that are being discussed by the G8 leaders, who have pledged to take action on them".

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Office for National Statistics says highest incidence of mild mental illness is in 50-54 age group and among women

Nearly a fifth of adults in the UK experience anxiety or depression, according to the latest official figures.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said a higher proportion of women than men reported that they suffered from the conditions, with the highest indication of anxiety or depression occurring in the 50-54 age group.

There was evidence of anxiety or depression in 19% of people aged 16 or over, with 21% of women reporting the symptoms and 16% of men.

People who were divorced or separated were more likely to have symptoms of mild to moderate mental ill health, with 27% showing signs of the conditions compared with 20% of those who were single, cohabiting or widowed and 16% of those who were married or in a civil partnership.

Higher levels were also recorded by those who were not in paid work – 23% reported they were experiencing mental health issues, compared with 15% of those in paid work.

The ONS also revealed that 38% of those who said they were relatively unhappy with their health had some indication of anxiety or depression, compared with 11% of those who declared themselves to be relatively satisfied with their health.

Carers were more likely to report mild to moderate mental health issues, at a rate of 25% of those questioned, compared with 17% of people who did not provide such care.

The study is part of the ONS Measuring National Wellbeing programme, which surveyed 40,000 households between 2010 and 2011. The figures released on Wednesday come from the general health questionnaire, which asked 12 questions about respondents' levels of self-confidence, stress, depression and self-worth.

The ONS said the types of mental illness recorded on the questionnaire did not include severe mental disorders.

The latest figures released as part of the wellbeing study also showed that 66% of people in the UK were satisfied with their health. In those aged 80 or older, satisfaction with health fell to 53%.

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David Cameron said Britain would use its G8 presidency to crack down on tax avoidance. What progress has been made so far?

How serious has David Cameron been in attempting to tackle tax abuses?

The prime minister has set out bold ambitions to "rewrite the rules on tax". He promised Britain would use its G8 presidency to crack down on big businesses and rich individuals using "an army of clever accountants" to avoid tax. "This is an issue whose time has come," he told the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. But seasoned tax experts heard in his words an of echo Gordon Brown's distinctly premature 2009 summit declaration of "the beginning of the end for tax havens".

Has the G8 made progress cracking down on multinationals playing off one regime against another to lower its tax bills?

The world leaders have called on the OECD, the body that draws up international guidelines on tax, to draft a template for multinationals to report the tax they pay to taxing authorities in each jurisdiction in which they operate. Cameron claims this will "identify where multinational companies are earning their profits and paying their taxes so we can track and expose those who aren't paying their fair share". Tax campaigners, however, suggest it does not go nearly far enough. There was no commitment for this information to be made public or for companies to provide greater disclosure on other economic activity on a country-by-country basis.

What about closing loopholes in international tax rules exploited by firms such as Google, Apple and Amazon?

Several issues around taxing multinationals are being worked on furiously by the OECD before a wider G20 meeting of finance minister next month. The G8 promised to "take the necessary individual and collective action" to back up any recommendations from recasting the rules. As a broad statement of intent the G8 leaders said: "Countries should change rules that let companies shift their profits across borders to avoid taxes".

Will companies and trusts be forced to disclose those who stand behind them as owners, or as trust settlors and beneficiaries?

Tax fairness campaigners fought hard on this issue and appeared to have won the support of Cameron who pushed for a commitment to registers of beneficial ownership to be set up. However, the prime minister appears to have been left isolated on the issue by his G8 peers. The final leaders' communique offered little more than support for an existing review being carried out by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), another international quango. The FATF believes a central register is just one way forward, with other proposals more akin to imposing tougher know-your-customer rules on company administrators. With little common ground on transparency thresholds the G8 declared that nations would each commit to their own "action plans" on this issue. The UK is to set up a central registry of beneficial owners, but will consult on whether this should be made publicly accessible. It will also review the role of nominee directors and bearer shares in corporate life. The US is to leave the decision to individual states, with Delaware – a well known secrecy haven – thought likely to resist.

Did the G8 achieve progress on tax information exchange between countries to help in the battle against evasion?

There have been a confusing blizzard of bilateral and multilateral tax information exchange agreements in the last four years, each of them building in significance. Before the G8 meeting, Cameron was able to claim a victory by corralling many British affiliated tax havens – crown dependencies and overseas territories – into signing up to some less onerous tax co-operation initiatives. The gold standard in this area is a US measure called FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act), an aggressive unilateral initiative that comes into force later this year requiring financial firms to disclose details of all US citizens' assets held overseas or face punishing taxes. There are signs that Europe and others could follow with similar draconian measures, setting a common international standard. "We call on all jurisdictions to adopt and effectively implement this new single global standard at the earliest opportunity," the G8 communique said.

How will the summit be judged?

Cameron's verdict at the closing press conference was that he had secured a G8 declaration that "has the potential to rewrite the rules on tax and transparency for the benefit of countries across the world". New tools, he said, would now be forged that would help ensure "proper tax justice in our world". But most tax campaigners were last night expressing disappointment at a final communique long on talk and short on commitment. Some took heart that radical ideas had made it onto the table for discussion – even if they were not adopted. Murray Worthy, tax campaigner at the anti-poverty charity War on Want, said: "As always, the devil will be in the detail, and there is no detail here. Talk of stopping companies shifting profits to avoid taxes is a huge step forwards, but we have heard great promises from the world's heads of state before – it is what they do that counts."

What will it mean for tax haven's linked to Britain?

Jersey and other crown dependencies were on Monday night claiming that they were already way ahead of the G8 economies themselves in meeting the standards set out in the communique. "We have been doing what is being commended for quite a long time," said Geoff Cook, chief executive of the islands financial lobby group Jersey Finance, "So my message to the G8 is... Level Up!" If Cook is right, and principles set out by the G8 leaders changes little in Jersey, many tax campaigners will regard the summit as a heavy defeat. The islands trust industry – and that of Guernsey and the Isle of Man – are viewed by critics as facilitating billions of founds of tax evasion. Campaigners claim sophisticated evaders use these offshore trusts, often in combination with companies and bank accounts in other secrecy jurisdictions, to hide assets from tax authorities.

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Plan supported by Office for Fair Access aims to encourage talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds

Universities are being urged by the government to sponsor new free schools specialising in mathematics, in a plan supported by the Office for Fair Access (Offa) to encourage talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds to study maths at degree level.

As an incentive to open the new schools, universities will be allowed to fund them using budgets otherwise reserved for improving access to higher education for under-represented and disadvantaged groups.

According to letters from education minister Elizabeth Truss to the heads of higher education maths departments in England, universities will be able to sponsor the new free schools through a fast-track, simplified procedure, and without the competitive application process normally required of those bidding to open free schools.

"This country has some brilliant university maths departments and world famous mathematicians," Truss wrote.

"But there is no denying there is a big jump between studying maths in schools and colleges – even for those students taking A-level further maths – and what those young people go on to study at university."

If the scheme takes off, it could create a network of selective free schools teaching 16-19-year-olds under the aegis of their local universities, providing academic support and strong links between higher education and local populations.

Les Ebdon, director of Offa, said: "I'd be happy to see more university-led maths free schools because of the role they can play in helping able students from disadvantaged backgrounds access higher education.

"It is for individual universities and colleges to decide whether or not this is something they want to do, but Offa is supportive of anything that is targeted at under-represented groups and helps them to fulfil their potential."

A Whitehall source said if it proves to be a success the model could be extended to other subject areas, especially science.

Two universities – Exeter and King's College, London – have been given provisional approval to establish maths schools to open in 2014, while some universities already sponsor or partner with academies.

The move to promote free schools comes a day after Labour pledged to curtail the programme established under Conservative education secretary Michael Gove.

Stephen Twigg, Labour's shadow education secretary, argued that free schools were often built without regard to local need, although plans for specialist maths sixth form colleges may escape Labour's axe.

According to Truss's letter, Ebdon confirmed it would be "perfectly legitimate to allocate funding ringfenced for improving access for under-represented groups towards the establishment of such schools," counting the spending as "widening access".

Entry to the new schools would be selective, rather than by catchment area, in an effort to open admissions to all prospective pupils within an area.

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Supermarkets and some food producers agree to nutritional labels but critics call for refuseniks 'to be named and shamed'

Traffic light-coded food labels indicating how much fat, salt and sugar an item contains are to appear on most food that is eaten in Britain in a move hailed by health campaigners as ending shoppers' confusion over what to buy.

All the main supermarket chains and some of the biggest producers of snack foods, such as PepsiCo and Nestlé, have agreed with ministers to use front-of-pack nutritional labels coloured red, amber or green on some or all of their products in an effort to make it easier for consumers to choose healthier options.

The traffic-light labels, which many food campaigners and medical organisations have long called for, will be part of a new hybrid nutritional labelling scheme that combines them with guideline daily amounts (GDAs), which senior doctors have criticised as deceptive and utterly baffling to most consumers.

The new labels are intended to help shoppers know at a glance whether a product contains a low, medium or high amount of fat, saturated fat, salt, sugar and calories. Big supermarkets, including Tesco, Sainsbury's, Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and the Co-op, will start using them "imminently", though some may take "a few months to rebrand their packaging", the Department of Health said.

"People will be able to use the colours to understand the level of nutrients in the food they are eating. The labels are not designed to demonise foods with lots of reds but to have people consider what they are eating and make sure it's part of a balanced diet.

"Businesses that have signed up to using the new label today already account for more than 60% of the food that is sold in the UK," a spokesman added.

The move follows research that found consumers are confused when more than one scheme is used, reducing their ability and inclination to use the information.

Health problems associated with being overweight or obese cost the NHS more than £5bn a year. A 2011 report found that 61% of the adult population in England is overweight or obese – higher than almost all other developed countries. It also found one third of 10- to 11-year-olds and almost a quarter of four- to five-year-olds are overweight or obese.

Mars UK, McCain Foods and Bernard Matthews are also among the food producers to have signed up to the scheme, though the multinationals Coca-Cola, Cadbury and United Biscuits have refused. Coca-Cola's decision has surprised some food campaigners, given its recent high-profile campaign intended to reinforce its pledge that "we want to be part of the solution" to the growing global obesity epidemic.

The widespread adoption of the hybrid labels represents a significant change because, until now, only a few supermarkets – including M&S, Waitrose and Sainsbury's – have used traffic lights. The Co-op began using them in 2006 before changing in 2011 to labels that incorporated both them and GDAs. McCain Foods is the only major producer to already use colour coding to help guide consumers' choices.

GDAs, which supermarkets such as Tesco have always used, purport to tell consumers what proportion of their recommended daily allowance of fat, salt or sugar the product contains, according to official government advice about the maximum amount of each that is good for health.

But they have come under fire for misleading shoppers by only giving the GDAs for one biscuit in a packet or one serving of a tin of soup, for example, rather than the entire product thus potentially letting shoppers underestimate what is in them.

The public health minister, Anna Soubry, said shoppers were confused by existing food labels: "Research shows that, of all the current schemes, people like this [hybrid] label the most and can use the information to make healthier choices." More manufacturers should adopt the labels, she said.

The consumer group Which? welcomed a "big step forward" and the British Heart Foundation said the "first-class scheme … will make it easier for shoppers to scan the shelves and make more informed choices about what's going in their trolley".

But Diane Abbott, shadow public health minister, and the Children's Food Campaign (CFC), an alliance of health, education and children's groups, called on ministers to "name and shame" firms that shunned the scheme.

"It isn't tenable for any food company, which claims to be socially responsible, to refuse to adopt the scheme," said Charlie Powell, CFC director..

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Next week's 'cuts' review will pave the way for reductions so deep they could strain the social contract – but we could put up taxes instead

A week today, we will have the oddity of a Westminster set-piece that was never supposed to be. Budgets, the Queen's speech and the like can usually be plotted out years in advance. But this month's spending review – or, rather, cuts review – was not expected to be necessary. The coalition originally ventured that the retrenchments it set out in 2010 would suffice to fix the public finances within a single parliament. But as the recovery failed to materialise, five years of austerity became six years, then seven and more, and it became unavoidable for George Osborne to detail an extra year of pain for the financial year 2015-16, which straddles the next general election.

We are all used to reading about 15%, 20% or 25% cuts, so the 2.8% saving that the chancellor requires from the average department might sound easy to find. And yet there are rumbling government rows over services such as the police. For the sanguine analysis that says a couple of percentage points is nothing to worry about ignores two crucial things: first, the fact that – after a half-decade of pain – the easy cuts have all been made; second, the continuing promise to exempt big chunks of spending, most notably the huge health service, from outright cuts redoubles the pain elsewhere.

Indeed, factoring in the "ringfences" for hospitals and schools, and on realistic assumptions about the ability of Philip Hammond and Theresa May to shield squaddies and bobbies from the worst, the Institute for Fiscal Studies reckons (pdf) that other departments might be facing cuts of around 10%. That is a savage saving to have to find in any year, and especially in a year that follows such a long lean spell.

Think about what a cut on this scale would mean for an urban town hall, where the cuts have already reduced spending power by substantially more than the English average of 12.2%. Statutory duties towards orphaned young people and frail elderly people consume a huge chunk of resources, and cannot lawfully be disowned. Council back-office services have already been pared to the bone – planning and development has been cut by an average of 46%. Meanwhile, typical cultural spending has been chopped by a fifth. If you care about a library, a sports centre or even a park close to your home, it is time to be afraid.

With the Treasury's plans implying that – after the election – we will hear about detailed plans for yet another two years of similar pain, we are talking about cumulative cuts that go so far beyond what the public has been primed for that they could strain the social contract. No wonder those in the know are scrambling around for alternatives. Treasury officials slipped a telling sentence into the budget: "It would, of course, be possible to do more of this further consolidation through tax instead." No doubt we can expect a conspiracy of silence from the politicians on that point until polling day is safely out of the way; for now, the vaunted Osborne alternative will be cutting welfare – again.

He wants to build on his benefit cap for individual families by somehow capping welfare spending as a whole. The counter-argument about poverty won't interest him, but as the guardian of the economy he should be expected to give weight to the crucial role that social security payments have played in steadying demand in the slump. He might also recall the last time that spending which bounces about because of booms and busts was lumped in with the rest – in the late 80s and early 90s. The government ended up in a mess because it mistook the flattering effects of a brief burst of growth for a permanent improvement.

In the end, the pickle we're in will take taxes to fix – but don't expect anyone to tell you that next week.

1. We can’t take further spending cuts without losing vital services, councils warn George Osborne
2. Cameron pledges ‘no further cuts to army, navy or air force’
3. Northern Ireland to get spending increase if peace walls come down