The United Kingdom government deficit reduction programme is a series of sustained reductions in public spending, intended to reduce the government budget deficit and the welfare state in the United Kingdom. However, the NHS and education were "ringfenced" and protected from spending cuts. In 2009, the term "age of austerity" was popularized by British Conservative leader David Cameron in his keynote speech to the Conservative Party forum in Cheltenham on 26 April 2009, in which he committed to end years of what he characterized excessive government spending.