Cameron: 'pay now or worsen recession'
Updated on 07 October 2009
Conservative leader David Cameron tells Jon Snow that the "big choice" is whether to accept a squeeze now and reduce the UK's deficit or delay paying it off and risk falling back into recession.
He insisted that the party would keep the pledge to scrap inheritance tax on properties worth less than £1m as it was a promise they had already made, and the money would be made up by non-domicile residents.
"That to me is a sort of self contained pledge we made and we will keep," he said, adding that "the reason why we maintained the inheritance tax pledge is it is paid for by a specific group of people."
He said the "better off have got to make their contribution" through delaying the abolition of the 50p tax rate and getting rid of child trust funds.
On bank bonuses, he reiterated George Osborne's "clear warning" that a Conservative government would use the tax system to penalise excessive bank bonuses.
"In terms of confronting the excesses and the wrongdoing and the problems of regulation, I think the Conservative party has been right out there in front," he said.
Cameron argued that the UK is "the only economy in the G20 with a budget deficit on this scale."
"I believe that we are running the risk of a serious crisis," he said. "If we just leave this deficit, if we just sit there and say 'let's just park this issue', you could have rising interest rates because people don't want to lend us money, and that would tip us back into recession.
"This is the big choice. There are those people who say that the threat to the recovery is dealing with the deficit. Some people make that argument, I happen to think they are wrong. I think the threat to the recovery is not dealing with the deficit.
"We are all in this together. We have got to show leadership, so that means starting the cuts in Whitehall and Westminster. Yes that does mean cutting some jobs, there's no doubt. In the central civil service some jobs will have to go, and I think we have to be frank about that.
"It does mean doing something substantial, that's why we have to have at least the one year pay freeze and the other things we're talking about.
"Also, it has got to be fair and that's why taking some of the benefits like the child trust funds away from people on middle and higher incomes is fair and right.
"Yes, there is more that needs to be done, but we are so far ahead of a government that is not being honest at all about the choices that need to be made, and I think for an opposition that's a thoroughly responsible and right thing to do."
On Thursday Channel 4 News online will be providing extended live coverage of David Cameron's speech to the Conservative conference, including film extracts, expert analysis and Twitter commentary.
To watch and contribute, go to www.channel4.com/news from midday on 8 October.
