Securing the Recovery, Not Putting It At Risk
Issue- Gordon Brown has given a major speech on the economy at Reuters.
Key points
- The next election will be a big choice about the future for Britain. Between growth and increasing prosperity with Labour, or a decade of austerity, low growth and low employment under the Tories.
- Supporting the recovery is essential. Cutting support now - as George Osborne proposes - would put the recovery at risk.
- The Prime Minister said:
"There is nothing pre-ordained or automatic about the upturn, either here or around the world. While we have come through the worst of this dreadful storm, the waters are still choppy. There are still real risks to the recovery. And we must be alive to them.
"So the choices we will make in the coming months are just as important - and just as urgent - for families, jobs, mortgages and companies, large and small - as the difficult choices we made to protect them at the height of the storm.
"We are at a turning point - a crossroads for our domestic economic recovery, where we have to choose now to maintain the stimulus until recovery is assured or cut it - and at a crossroads for the global economic governance that will shape the next decades for us and our children.
"I believe that character is not about telling people what they want to hear but about telling them what they need to know. It is about having the courage to set out your mission and take the tough decisions and stick to them without being blown off course even when the going is difficult. For better or worse, with me: what you see is what you get.
"And the stakes are high. We dare not risk the recovery. For our task above all else is to preserve and expand the jobs - and lift the standards of life - of the British people. We are weathering the storm; now is no time to turn back. We will hold to our course. And we will complete this mission.
"We have got through this storm together but there are still substantial risks ahead. There will be bumps in the road. And I believe the only way to overcome them is by displaying the same strength and resolve as we did during the crisis."
- When the recovery is secured we will halve the deficit in four years and we will do it fairly. Part of our tough approach on spending will be the tough approach to pay in the public sector.
- We have announced that after the reports of the review bodies we will also freeze the pay of senior staff in the civil service, senior staff in the military, the judiciary, senior managers in the health service and the pay of consultants, GPs and dentists. These measures, along with the new controls on pay which the Prime Minister announced in December, will save money immediately and by 2013-14 save more than £3 billion.
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