Brown: we will cut – after the recession
Updated on 15 September 2009
Addressing the Trades Union Congress in Liverpool, Gordon Brown joined the rest of the political firmament in accepting that there will have to be public spending cuts. Gary Gibbon reports.
Gordon Brown has used the "c" word for the first time, admitting there will have to be public spending reductions. But he sought to stress that labour's cuts would be in costs, not services.
The prime minister had previously shied away from talking about cuts, but at the TUC conference he said the government would have to "cut costs, cut inefficiencies, cut unnecessary programmes and cut lower priority budgets".
He did not explain where the axe would fall, but the Conservatives said they have now won the argument over the need for spending curbs.
Today's announcement comes after several months in which the prime minister characterised the next general election as a choice between Labour investment and Conservative cuts.
His reluctance in the past to discuss the need for spending reductions has led to reports that the word "cuts" had become taboo at 10 Downing Street.
Mr Brown said that Labour's approach to spending reductions would be "guided by our values of fairness and responsibility".
He went on to announce plans to save £500m over the coming three years by reforming a Whitehall early retirement scheme which provides senior mandarins with as much as six times their annual pay.
The Labour leader characterised Conservative money-saving plans as "callous and cold-hearted", reminding TUC members of the impotence of the labour movement during a previous recession under Margaret Thatcher's Conservative administration.
"In the 1980s we marched for jobs, we rallied for jobs, we petitioned for jobs, but because we were not in power, we couldn't create jobs without a government committed to jobs.
"And so I ask you - the people who remember - to campaign with us as government to say that we will not allow a new generation of young people to become a lost generation. We won't let that happen - never again."
"Let us have confidence that by working together and implementing the values that we believe in we can together lead our country forward," he said.
