UK Conservatives push unpopular plans to cut debt
MANCHESTER, England — Britain’s main opposition Conservatives pledged Tuesday to make Britons work longer before retirement, cut child benefits and freeze government salaries — a program they acknowledged would likely be unpopular as they bid to win office.
George Osborne, the likely Treasury chief in any future Conservative government, told delegates at an annual conference that the Conservative Party would seek to reduce government spending if it wins Britain’s next national election. He said his priority would be in slashing the record-high national debt, now topping 1 trillion pounds ($1.6 trillion).
“Our country is facing the largest budget deficit in our modern history, we will have no choice but tackle it decisively,” Osborne told activists in Manchester, a city in northern England.
Britain’s Conservatives are expected to oust Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s governing Labour Party in the next election, which must be held by June.
Osborne said that, if his party wins office, he would raise Britain’s state pension age from 65 to 66 by 2016. The current Labour-led government pledges to do the same by 2026.
He said a Conservative government wouldn’t immediately reverse the government’s plan to introduce a 50 percent tax rate for Britain’s highest earners, and may take action to limit bankers’ bonuses.
Both policies are aimed at dismantling Brown’s charge that the Conservatives are defenders only of the rich and privileged.
“Some of these decisions are unpopular and some of them are not going to go down particularly well, but we have a massive problem in this country with the state of our public finances,” Conservative leader David Cameron told the BBC.
Osborne said wealthy families would no longer receive a 250 pound ($397) payment when they have a child, and that the Conservative Party would reduce other child welfare payments for high-earning parents.
He vowed to save 3 billion pounds ($4.77 billion) per year by cutting the administrative budgets of government departments and cutting some unemployment benefits.
The party proposes a one-year pay freeze for all public sector workers earning more than 18,000 pounds ($28,600) — a policy unlikely to be welcome among a large voting bloc, but which Osborne claimed could save 100,000 jobs.
On Monday, Britain’s government said it planned to freeze the salaries of top bureaucrats and offer minimal increases to other senior workers — a plan it said would affect about 750,000 public sector workers, including doctors and judges.
In one pledge to spend more than Brown’s government, Osborne vowed to double an allowance paid to troops while they serve on six-month tours in Afghanistan or other combat zones to 4,800 pounds ($7,630).
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