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Meanwhile the UK govt facilitates major arms deals to countries on its own list of human rights abusers
The chancellor, George Osborne, and the chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, have written to their cabinet colleagues to tell them the government will reduce central departmental spending by over a £1bn a year over the next three years (2013-14 to 2015-16).

To lock in this lower level of spending, budget reductions of 1.1% will also be made across departments' resource budgets over the next two financial years, 2014-15 and 2015-16, delivering savings of more than £1bn each year.

News of the reduction comes before Osborne delivers the government's autumn statement on Thursday.

In addition to existing underspends, departments are expected to identify further efficiency savings and to continue exercising strong financial discipline across all areas of their budgets.

Health, schools, aid, local government, HMRC and the security services will be exempt from these reductions.

The Ministry of Defence will be given exceptional flexibility to keep its expected underspends of £800m and roll them over to next year.

Earlier on Wednesday it emerged that the coalition is having to raid its school capital budget to find cash to build new school kitchens and fulfil its pledge to let all primary schoolchildren aged five to seven receive a free school meal, a pledge announced by Nick Clegg at his party conference in September.

Whitehall sources said Clegg had been forced to take money from the schools maintenance budget to fund emergency construction and improvement of school kitchens. The £150m shortfall stems from higher demand for school meals.

The need to build extra kitchens had not been foreseen at the time of the £600m announcement.

Initial leaks had suggested the shortfall amounted to £200m, but after the overspending story initially leaked, the Lib Dems said the one-off capital allocation was in fact £150m. Of this £80m will be from the Department for Education schools maintenance budget, while another £70m will be new money coming from the Treasury.

In an issue that was taken to the quad - the group of four most senior ministers in the coalition including Clegg, David Cameron and Osborne - the Department for Education complained that the extra money could require ministers to raid its basic needs budget, the fund used to deal with the rise in the number of primary schoolchildren caused by a baby boom.

However, instead it was agreed that unspent money from the DfE's maintenance budget would have to be deployed.

Cameron sided with Clegg in the quad meeting, according to coalition sources, in return for the Liberal Democrats ceding some ground on environmental issues.

A DfE source said: "There is no spare money in either the basic needs or maintenance budget to pay for Clegg's kitchens."

The source denied the money due to be announced in the autumn statement would be new, but said it would be taken from elsewhere in the department's budget. One Whitehall source said: "Even for Clegg, this gimmick does not work if he has to raid the budget for primary school places." Negotiations were continuing on Wednesday.