UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said Tuesday the coalition government would cut spending to ensure debt would fall as a percentage of GDP by fiscal Y 2015-16.

Unveiling the first budget of the new government, Osborne said it would deal decisively with the record government debt.
He told Parliament that compared with the plans set out by Labour, the Conservative/Liberal Democrats government would cut additional current expenditure by 30B GBP’s (US$44B) a year by Y 2014-15.

Osborne said he planned to “over-achieve” his target of balancing the structural current deficit by Y 2015-16.

Osborne said Britain’s current expenditure would rise from 637B GBP’s (US$944B) in fiscal Y 2010-11 to 711B GBP’s (US$1,053B) in 2015-16, blaming a “rapidly rising bill for debt interest.”

The UK’s public deficit currently stands at 155B GBP’s (US$230B), 2nd only to Ireland’s debt among European countries.

The UK’s national debt amounted to 903B GBP’s (US$1,339B), or 62.2% of GDP, the highest since Y 1993.

Last week, Britain’s newly established Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) cut the economic growth forecast for Y 2011 to 2.6%, down from the 3.25% estimated by the former Labour government.—Paul A. Ebeling, Jnr. www.livetradingnews.com

Posted by Shayne Heffernan on Jun 23rd, 2010and filed underEquities, Europe, Latest News, Markets.You can follow any responses to this entry through theRSS 2.0You can leave a response by filling following comment form or trackback to this entry from your site