LONDON–Austerity will remain in place in Britain for years to come, the government insisted yesterday even though the UK economy is growing faster than most of its peers.That was the message from British finance minister George Osborne as he unveiled his latest tax and spending plans. Despite painting a brighter economic picture for the UK economy and even suggesting that the country could be running a budget surplus by the end of the decade, there were few giveaways to hard-pressed households up and down the land.
Osborne cautioned that the public coffers remain strained and that the country will have to wait longer to see the end of years of austerity. He pledged to "fix the roof while the sun is shining" even when the budget is expected to start turning a small cash surplus in 2018-19."The hard work of the British people is paying off and we will not squander their efforts," he told a boisterous House of Commons during his Autumn Statement.
Though Britain's recovery from the savage 2008-9 recession has generally been muted, it is currently doing better than most other major economies around the world–its quarterly growth rate of 0.8 per cent in the third quarter is better than Germany's 0.3 per cent and even the US's 0.7 per cent.
AP