Britain faces years more austerity, David Cameron warned last night as he admitted there was no end in sight to the Government’s programme of spending cuts.
The Prime Minister said that despite some recent good news, such as falling inflation, the economic situation remained ‘a lot tougher’ than had been predicted when the Coalition took office in 2010.
In a gloomy analysis he could not envisage a time when the Government’s finances would not be under pressure.
And he refused to rule out having to extend the package of public spending cuts right through to 2020, five years longer than the Government initially promised.
In 2010 the Government set out a five-year austerity programme but Chancellor George Osborne has already been forced to extend that to 2017.
Last month Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood suggested Britain could face a decade of spending cuts, with austerity lasting until 2020.
In a newspaper interview last night, the Prime Minister appeared to confirm this was now a real possibility.
Asked if the austerity programme may continue right through the next five-year parliament, Mr Cameron said: ‘We have to deal with our deficits and we have to have sustainable debts.
‘I can’t see any time soon when the pressure will be off. I don’t see a time when difficult spending choices are going to go away.
A poll yesterday suggested that public confidence in the Coalition to deal with the economic crisis had more than halved since it came to power, to just 28 per cent.
But Mr Cameron indicated that he did not believe people had made up their minds.
He said they wanted to know that ‘as we get out of this mess, it won’t be the same group of people that benefited in the past.
‘There won’t be a splurge of public spending, mass immigration, wasted money on welfare, bankers paying themselves enormous salaries.’
The Prime Minister said that despite some recent good news, such as falling inflation, the economic situation remained ‘a lot tougher’ than had been predicted when the Coalition took office in 2010.
In a gloomy analysis he could not envisage a time when the Government’s finances would not be under pressure.
And he refused to rule out having to extend the package of public spending cuts right through to 2020, five years longer than the Government initially promised.
In 2010 the Government set out a five-year austerity programme but Chancellor George Osborne has already been forced to extend that to 2017.
Last month Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood suggested Britain could face a decade of spending cuts, with austerity lasting until 2020.
In a newspaper interview last night, the Prime Minister appeared to confirm this was now a real possibility.
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Asked if the austerity programme may continue right through the next five-year parliament, Mr Cameron said: ‘We have to deal with our deficits and we have to have sustainable debts.
‘I can’t see any time soon when the pressure will be off. I don’t see a time when difficult spending choices are going to go away.
Warning: Mr Cameron, pictured yesterday, said he 'cant see any time soon when the pressure will be off'
'That doesn't mean you can't cut people's taxes. You can do exciting and radical things at the same time as having overall difficult spending choices.'Mr Cameron insisted that Britain’s straitened circumstances need not prevent ministers pursuing a radical programme in office, including possible future tax cuts.
A poll yesterday suggested that public confidence in the Coalition to deal with the economic crisis had more than halved since it came to power, to just 28 per cent.
But Mr Cameron indicated that he did not believe people had made up their minds.
He said they wanted to know that ‘as we get out of this mess, it won’t be the same group of people that benefited in the past.
‘There won’t be a splurge of public spending, mass immigration, wasted money on welfare, bankers paying themselves enormous salaries.’
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