Darling Says U.K. Spending Cuts Must Be ‘Sensible,’ ‘Measured’
Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said the spending cuts the U.K. Treasury will impose after the election must be “sensible” and “measured,” suggesting he’s reluctant to make major reductions.
“You have to be measured about it,” Darling said in an interview on Bloomberg Television yesterday. “You have to make sure you reduce your spending to get your borrowing down, but you also do it in a way that doesn’t hurt people and doesn’t damage the prospects of the country in the future.”
Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government is locked in a debate with the Conservative opposition about how quickly the Treasury must rein in spending. Britain’s budget deficit will exceed 12 percent of gross domestic product next year, the most in the Group of 20 nations.
In a separate interview with the Spectator published today, Darling said he’s conducting an informal probe to see where costs can be saved. He said he hasn’t decided whether to publish the Comprehensive Spending Review due this year.
“Over the summer we have been going into departments and asking, ‘what are you spending money on? Do you need to do that? Could you do it better?” Darling told the magazine.
Conservative leader David Cameron has said he’d cut spending more quickly than Darling plans. Brown and his ministers say it would be wrong to reduce fiscal stimulus to the economy before the recession is finished.
“If you cut spending now you would put the country in a position where it may not recover easily from recession,” Brown said on BBC Radio 5 Live yesterday. “If you cut spending too quickly in this recession, then you will not be able to get out of recession for the foreseeable future. Over the next few months, we will have to continue the investment in the economy.”
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