By Richard Johnstone | 6 October 2011
David Cameron has called for Britain not to be ‘paralysed by gloom and fear’ about the economy, promising that the government’s austerity plan will work.
Speaking to the Conservative party conference in Manchester yesterday, the prime minister said that he understood ‘how tough things are’ in the economy’, but said that the country needed to ‘bring on the can-do optimism’.He told delegates: ‘I don't for one minute underestimate how worried people feel, whether about making ends meet, or the state of the world economy. But the truth is, right now we need to be energised, not paralysed by gloom and fear.’
The government needed to tell the truth about the economy, he said, and explain why ‘the good times are so long coming’. He called the answer ‘straightforward, but uncomfortable’ – that the country was in a debt crisis, which meant that the government had to reduce spending.
But the deficit reduction plan would work ‘only if we stick with it’, he added. In a comment that alluded to Labour party’s call for a reduction in the VAT rate, Cameron said: ‘When you're in a debt crisis, some of the normal things that government can do, to deal with a normal recession, like borrowing to cut taxes or increase spending – these things won't work because they lead to more debt, which would make the crisis worse.’
Cameron also called for a halt to the planned November 30 strikes over public sector pensions. Addressing his comments to the unions, he said the action would ‘hurt the very people who help pay’ for those pensions.
‘You have every right to protest,’ he added. ‘But our population is ageing. Our public sector pensions system is unaffordable. The only way to give public sector workers a decent, sustainable pensions system, and do right by the taxpayer, is to ask public servants to work a little longer and contribute a little more. That is fair.’
Cameron also joined other ministers in defending the government’s planning reforms, which will introduce a presumption to approve sustainable development. Some Conservatives fear this will lead to more development on green belt land.
But the prime minister said the changes were part of the government’s aims to create ‘a new economy’ – based on advanced manufacturing, technology, life sciences and green engineering – at the same time as reducing the deficit.
The reforms were needed to provide businesses with ‘the space to grow’, Cameron said, adding that they were ‘a localist plan from a localist party’.
To the opponents of the plans, he added: ‘I love our countryside and there's nothing I would do to put it at risk. But let's get the balance right. The proportion of land in England that is currently built up is 9%.
‘There are businesses out there desperate to expand, to hire thousands of people – but they're stuck in the mud of our planning system.’
