Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said today that there will be ‘no let-up’ in the government’s tough decisions on spending.
Speaking on the second anniversary of the coalition agreement, ahead of tomorrow’s Queen’s Speech, Cameron said the government’s ‘number one priority’ was to protect Britain ‘from the financial storm and to rescue our economy’.
He added that ‘in these perilous times it’s more important than ever for Britain that we stick to it’.
The two party leaders were visiting a tractor factory in Essex following last Thursday’s local elections, when both parties lost seats to Labour.
Cameron said that he didn’t ‘hide from the scale of that challenge’ to get government spending down and reduce the deficit, and insisted he is ‘listening’ to the message sent by voters in last week’s votes. ‘I get it,’ he said. ‘There are no closed minds, no closed doors in Downing Street.’ However, he said the ‘unvarnished truth’ was that the damage done by the financial crisis was ‘greater than anyone thought’.
The first quarter growth figures, which showed that the UK was now back in recession, meant that a tough task was ‘getting even tougher’, he admitted, but the government was ‘making progress’ in getting borrowing down.
The coalition is also ‘determined to do whatever needs doing to succeed’ in rebalancing the economy, he added, highlighting that it had supported business investment.
‘Our solution is not just about deficit reduction. It’s about getting the banks lending. It’s about creating the most competitive business tax regime in the developed world.
‘It’s about helping small businesses and freeing them from the mass of unnecessary bureaucracy that too often stifles enterprise and entrepreneurship. It’s about helping people on to the housing ladder, and reforming the planning system to allow for much needed new development.’
Clegg said that the coalition would now ‘take stock’ following the ‘disappointing news on the economy’, but the government could not duck ‘tough choices’.
He added: ‘Our parties came together to rescue, repair and reform our economy. We’ve taken difficult and decisive action to keep the country safe in the immediate future. But we must never lose sight of why we are doing this; what we are trying to achieve; and where we can do more to get it right.
‘2008 was like a giant heart attack. The banking sector blew up. The housing bubble burst. People – and government – had astronomical debts they suddenly couldn’t afford. And you cannot recover from that overnight. Our task is nothing short of rebuilding a new economy out of the rubble of the old and that is going to take time.’
Whitehall would be ‘directing its energies’ towards getting large infrastructure developments delivered, with ‘every possible source of private funding’ examined to boost the economy, he said.
‘I hope that gives you a sense of our priorities. Think of today as a kind of statement of intent.’
Responding to the speech, Labour leader Ed Miliband said that the government was ‘out-of-touch’, and Cameron and Clegg were ‘blaming somebody else’ for the economy’s problems.
‘They came in as a government with goodwill; they came in as a government that was getting the benefit of the doubt from the British people because the British people are fair-minded.
‘They promised change, they promised an economy that would grow; and things have got worse, not better.’
Tomorrow the government will set out its legislative programme in the Queen’s Speech during the state opening of Parliament.
