Education secretary Michael Gove is expected to announce today that up to 700 school building redevelopments are to be frozen.

Gove, whose education department has been reviewing contracts signed under the Labour government’s £55bn Building Schools for the Future programme, is expected to inform MPs later today of £1.5bn of cuts.

Of these, it is understood the government will block proposals for £1bn of spending that has been committed to refurbishing contracts across the UK.

The cuts follow a letter written by Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander to non-ring-fenced government departments explaining that they must draw up plans for a 40% cut to spending as a worst-case-scenario by the end of the month.

If the government needs to find more savings than it expects at October’s Spending Review, all departments except for health, education, and defence will be asked to find 40% cuts over the next four years, rather than the 25% announced at the Emergency Budget.

The government’s top 20 suppliers are due to be briefed this week on plans to renegotiate billions of pounds worth of existing government contracts.

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