Chancellor George Osborne piled a further £148m of cuts on to the Ministry of Justice as part of a fresh round of spending reductions announced in his autumn statement.

Chris Grayling’s department was revealed to be one of the biggest losers in Whitehall after Osborne (pictured, left) pledged to cut an extra £1bn from the budgets of government departments in each of the next two financial years.

Treasury officials said that departments would have to find cuts of 1.1% in 2014/15 and 2015/16.

Figures released with the autumn statement show that a further £77m will be slashed from the MoJ’s budget in 2014/15 and an additional £71m in 2015/16.

A further £12m will be cut from the budgets of the law officers’ departments – £6m in each year.

The other big losers in 2014/15 are the Home Office (£118m), Defence (£277m), Education (£167m) and Business, Innovation & Skills (£157m).

According to analysis by cross-party thinktank the Social Market Foundation, between 2010 and 2018 the MoJ could shrink by almost a third if future planned cuts are evenly spread – or almost 40% if some departments are protected.