Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown's spending review on Monday will set the battle lines for the next general election over how much government can and should do to improve public services.
Brown has ruled out any pre-election spending spree. He revealed his spending totals in March - an average 2.5 percent real-terms increase over the next three years - with huge rises already earmarked for health and education.
He will now set out what the rest of government will get in what has been Labour's toughest spending round since it came to power in 1997 as a spending binge has coincided with an economic slowdown to push the public finances sharply into the red over the last few years.
But Brown will claim that lower spending on debt interest and unemployment, combined with a drive for 20 billion pounds of efficiency savings, will still enable him to deliver real-terms increases to priority areas.
"Even with lower overall growth in public spending than in the 2002 review, the savings we are making on debt interest and unemployment, the two great costs under the Conservatives, allow us ... to meet our fiscal rules, keep taxes low and spend more on vital services," he told reporters on Friday. Brown is expected to boost significantly the current 2 billion pounds budget for "national security", which includes counter-terrorism measures.
Comments
Comments are closed.