LONDON
Britain's top finance minister announced on Monday that the country needed spending cuts worth of £25 billion ($41 billion) in the two years following the upcoming general election in May 2015.
The job is "not even half done," George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, told reporters in Birmingham, adding that £17 billion of cuts are needed in 2014 and £20 billion next year to reduce the deficit.
"Britain should never return to the levels of spending of the previous government. Government will have to be permanently smaller and so too is the welfare system,” the chancellor said, adding that the half of the cut would have to come from the welfare budget.
He also announced cutting income tax and freezing fuel duty. He said the UK needed to create jobs and that the government would do this by supporting "business and enterprise".
Discussing immigration he said the government would reduce immigration and also introduce a cap on the state welfare budget.
"State pension will not be affected by the cap," he added.
"We've got to make more cuts. That's why 2014 is the year of hard truths - the year when Britain faces a choice.
"Do we say 'the worst is over, back we go to our bad habits of borrowing and spending and living beyond our means and let the next generation pay the bill'?
"Or do we say to ourselves 'yes, because of our plan, things are getting better - but there is still a long way to go and there are big, underlying problems we have to fix in our economy'?"
englishnews@aa.com.tr
