The news everyone expected regarding further cuts in Government spending will be announced by Chancellor George Osbourne this morning.
Chancellor Osbourne will say in his speech, which he will deliver from the floor of a factory in Birmingham, that Britain must face up to “hard truths” about the need to make more cuts and reforms to get a stable economy.
The Chancellor will say in his speech: “We’ve got to make more cuts. That’s why 2014 is the year of hard truths – the year when Britain faces a choice.”
“Do we say ‘the worst is over, back we go to our bad habits of borrowing and spending and living beyond our means and let the next generation pay the bill’?
“Or do we say to ourselves ‘yes, because of our plan, things are getting better – but there is still a long way to go and there are big, underlying problems we have to fix in our economy’?”
Despite the economic uncertainty, growth in the UK manufacturing sector is expected to improve in 2014 according to a survey released this morning by EEF and Aldermore Bank. The same survey shows the overriding opinion of company executives is that the UK’s economic uncertainty is becoming the new norm, but optimism is high for 2014 with growth in new markets expected to drive the manufacturing industry forward.
However the fact of the matter appears to be that, as the Chancellor will point out in his speech today, the UK is currently borrowing around £100bn a year and paying half that money a year in interest just to service its debts.
