Spending review dropped amid Covid uncertainty
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Chancellor Rishi Sunak will instead set out a one-year review in late November.
The Treasury said it was "the right thing" at the moment to "focus entirely" on protecting jobs and responding to the crisis.
Economists had warned that the pandemic meant setting longer-term spending targets would prove difficult.
It has also been announced that Mr Sunak will update the House of Commons on the state of the UK economy on Thursday.
The latest Office for National Statistics figures show the economy was
still 9.2% smaller than in August than in February, before lockdown began.And the government's net borrowing estimate for September was £36.1bn - the third-highest figure since records began in 1993.
The Treasury had promised to use the spending review to help in "levelling up" opportunity across the country - a key Conservative manifesto promise.
'Disappointing'
Pledges included improving education and the NHS, funding scientific research and achieving the ambition of making the UK "zero-carbon" by 2050.
Announcing the spending review's cancellation, Mr Sunak said: "In the current environment it's essential that we provide certainty.
"So we'll be doing that for departments and all of the nations of the United Kingdom by setting budgets for next year, with a total focus on tackling Covid and delivering our Plan for Jobs.
"Long-term investment in our country's future is the right thing to do, especially in areas which are the cornerstone of our society, like the NHS, schools and infrastructure."
Last month, Mr Sunak scrapped plans for an autumn Budget in favour of the review, which would have set out how much each government department can spend but would not have included any changes to taxation.
The review had been due to set departments' resource budgets for 2021-2 to 2023-4 and their capital budgets for 2021-2 to 2024-5.
The devolved administrations' block grants were also due to be set for 2021-2 to 2024-5.
Sharon Taylor, of the District Councils Network, which represents 187 local authorities across England, said it was "disappointing to see a one-year rather than three-year settlement".
She urged the government to give local authorities "long-term financial certainty" as they deal with the effects of Covid-19.
But Gemma Tetlow, chief economist at the Institute for Government think tank, said it was "good to see the government finally facing up to what has been clear for months, [that it is] not possible to do a multi-year spending review now in midst of the pandemic".
Defence review delayed?
The government has also confirmed it is reconsidering the timetable for its Integrated Review of Foreign, Development, Security and Defence Policy, which was expected to be published next month.
It is looking at issues including the equipment procurement by the armed forces, methods for tackling serious and organised crime, and the use of technology and data to deal with threats the UK faces.
Former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson famously said in 1962: "Great Britain has lost an empire but not yet found a role."
For many years, the UK sought to answer that challenge by acting as a bridge between the EU and the US. But both these relationships are changing. The government's integrated review of foreign and defence policy was supposed to answer the question: what's next for the UK?
Any delay would have consequences. The defence chiefs would be dismayed at having no certainty over their plans to modernise the armed forces.
Allies around the world would be dismayed that, four years after the Brexit referendum, there was still no clarity over the UK's post-EU role in the world.
So there is talk as well of the government maybe publishing its foreign policy strategy later on this year without the defence spending.
The UK, so the argument goes, is leaving the EU in December, it is chairing next year's G7 and UN COP 26 climate change summits. If now is not the time for a new foreign policy, when is?
Amid the economic uncertainty, it is thought the government could delay the whole Integrated Review by a year - or that it could decide to publish the foreign policy strategy part of it on its own, without the defence spending.
Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, described any delay as "concerning".
He added: "We need a strategic roadmap to shape our future and that means choices. Covid uncertainty makes this more important. We need to shape the future, or be shaped by others who have planned and chosen."
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Spending review dropped amid Covid uncertainty - BBC News
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