Conservative cuts to hit pay and pensions
Updated on 06 October 2009
A Conservative government would freeze pay and make people postpone their retirement, according to spending cuts laid out by shadow chancellor George Osborne in his speech to his party conference.
From public sector pay to the retirement age, the shadow chancellor, George Osborne, has unveiled a series of spending cuts aimed, he said, at tackling Britain's rising national debt.
Mr Osborne insisted: "We're all in this together". A one-year pay freeze is planned for more than four million public workers on more than £18,000 a year.
The Conservatives also plan to postpone the retirement age to 66 for men by 2016, and for women by 2020, and make savings across Whitehall.
All future public sector pensions will be capped at £50,000 a year. George Osborne says he is being upfront with the electorate, but it all combines to knock just a fraction out of Britain's gargantuan national debt.
However, the word "growth", even the concept of growing Britain out of its present malaise, warrants not a single mention in the speech.
"Let sunshine rule the day," David Cameron once said - but are there votes in being honest about the scale of the economic deluge?
Mr Osborne said the measures would slash billions of pounds a year from government spending. Labour called his figures "at best wrong, and at worst, deliberately misleading".
Our economics correspondent Faisal Islam reports on what George Osborne's speech has revealed about a future Tory chancellorship.
Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Philip Hammond speaks to Jon Snow.
Gary Gibbon reports live from the Tory party conference in Manchester.
