DC: Tackling Britain's legacy of debt

David Cameron writes:

It's been a busy few weeks. I've been spending a lot of time with Ministers and officials, discussing the big challenges facing Britain and what we've got to do to sort them out.

What I've found is getting into government is a bit like buying a car - it's only when you've driven it for a while, and taken a proper look under the bonnet, that you get a proper idea of the condition it's in.

Nowhere is that more true than with our massive deficit and growing debt. For a while now, we've all known how bad things are. Last year, our budget deficit was the biggest in our peacetime history.
And within five years, our national debt is set to double to £1.4 trillion.

But what we didn't know for sure before is how much the interest on our debt is likely to rise in the years to come. We didn't know this because the last government refused to publish the information. Now we've got the figure, I can see why they tried to keep it secret. So what's the figure?

Well, if we carry on as we are, in five years time the interest we will pay on our debt could be around £70 billion - that's more than we currently spend on schools in England, plus climate change, plus transport.

Just think about that. We could be paying more on debt interest than educating our children, protecting our planet, and helping people get around Britain. That's astonishing - and gives us one of the most obvious reasons why we so urgently need to tackle our debts. It's not just that the more we wait, the greater the risk to our economic recovery. It's also the more we wait, the more we waste on paying off the interest on this debt and the less we get to spend on the things we want, like schools and hospitals.

So what do we have to do? We need to cut spending and we need to get on with it straight away. Of course, this will be tough. But as I said in my speech today, the cuts that are coming are Labour's cuts. It's their legacy to Britain. There will be a price to pay for their spending, borrowing and empire-building. All those quangos, all that bureaucracy, all that waste. But we've had to sort out Labour's mess before. We will roll our sleeves up and sort it out again.

But just as we're clear about what we must do, we're also clear about how we must do it. As we've said all along, we will carry out these cuts in a way that protects the poorest and most vulnerable; that strengthens and unites the country; that demonstrates that we're all in this together.

That's what I'm about. That's what this party's about. And if we do this - I know Britain will emerge from this country stronger, better and richer.


Comments

D. Ebt said…
Hey dude, your post is totally different from others. This would be a change for the people and also can have a funny time with you. Hope this blog goes on and on.
Chris Whiteside said…
Eh - thanks I think !

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