Britain’s finance minister promised immediate support to every British household yesterday as the country heads into recession.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling delivers his pre-budget report to parliament today ahead of the full 2009-2010 budget early next year.
He is expected to outline plans to slash taxes and boost spending, with newspapers speculating that value added tax on sales could be cut from 17.5 percent to 15 percent.
Explicitly saying Britain was “moving into a recession,” Darling hinted at the plans he will unveil.
“I shall set out measures designed to help people pay their bills, keep businesses afloat, and maintain spending on health and education,” Darling wrote in the Sunday Mirror newspaper.
“Every household will get support now — to help them through the difficult period ahead,” he wrote. “Worried mortgage holders will get help and I shall do what I can to help those who lose their jobs. And I will state exactly how we intend to pay for the help we are providing now.”
“And we, like many advanced economies, are moving into a recession,” he said.
Darling’s report comes amid concerns about Britain’s ballooning debt and the tax rises and spending cuts that may be necessary later.
David Cameron, leader of the main opposition Conservatives, slammed British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, saying that his high spending during a decade as chancellor under former prime minister Tony Blair from 1997 left Britain less able to cope with the credit crunch than other countries.
“He doesn’t want to admit to the affordability problem because the reason why it is so potentially unaffordable is because he’s put us there,” Cameron told the Sunday Times newspaper.
“I’m telling the truth about the bad state of the public finances and he’s taking everyone for fools,” he wrote.
“He knows he has a huge share of the responsibility for the mess we’re already in. He knows it’s going to get worse and I think he knows the longer this goes on, the more he’s going to get found out,” Cameron wrote.
But Brown insisted he had taken tough action to get the national debt down and keep inflation under control and blasted the Conservatives’ handling of recessions in the 1980s and 1990s.
“These are extraordinary times for our economy. And at times like this families and small businesses need to know their government is on their side,” he wrote in the News of the World newspaper.
“No politician can promise to stop the difficult times, but I can promise that we will do everything we can to help people get through them fairly,” he wrote.
Brown also pledged government departments would “tighten their belts” to ensure taxpayers get value from the state.
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