BRITISH PRIME minister Gordon Brown, who is expected to receive a boost today with the formal declaration that the UK’s recession has ended, has warned that the Conservative party’s plan to impose billions worth of public spending cuts if it comes to power would choke growth and cause years of unemployment.
Mr Brown seized on comments made by former Tory chancellor of the exchequer Kenneth Clarke over the weekend, who warned Conservative shadow chancellor George Osborne not to make “damaging and unsupportable” spending cuts immediately after a Conservative victory, should it win the election expected in May.
The UK office for national statistics is set today to announce that the UK’s recession has finally ended, when it produces its quarterly growth figures this morning, showing a £180 billion (€206 billion) deficit for this year alone.
In his first press conference for two months, Mr Brown said savings on unemployment benefits – now being paid to 500,000 fewer people than the treasury had feared – and much of the revenue from the tax on bankers’ bonuses will be spent on cutting borrowing figures, rather than paying for public services.
Contrasting his record in office with Mr Cameron’s, Mr Brown said unemployment this time has been lower than during the 1980s recession, when jobless numbers continued to rise for years after the recession ended. This, he said, was due to government actions to safeguard the economy, particularly in targeting young unemployed so “they do not become another lost generation”.
Under its latest plan, the British government will guarantee all unemployed 18-24 year olds a job, or training for six months, which will be partly funded by the bankers’ bonus tax. Up to 470,000 opportunities will be created under the Young Person’s Guarantee over the next 15 months, benefiting almost 100,000 young people straight away.
“It’s a signal of how committed we are to making sure we have a generation of trained young people ready to work,” he said.
However, the Tory leader said the UK’s debt crisis is not over just because the recession is over. “In fact far from it: Labour’s debt crisis is now the biggest threat to our recovery so we will only get this recovery right if we start right now on a proper debt reduction plan.” The UK is now borrowing more than Greece, which already has to pay 2.5 per cent more for debt than Germany: a similar result in the UK would cost families an extra £200 per month in tax, he warned.