Clegg defends spending curbs amid Nobel laureate's criticism

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has rejected claims that the coalition's swingeing spending cuts threatened the economic recovery.

Britain’s new Nobel Prize winning economist, Professor Christopher Pissarides, has warned that the Government was taking “unnecessary risks” when the economy was weak.

He accused Chancellor George Osborne of having “exaggerated” the threat of a Greek-style sovereign debt crisis unless drastic action was taken to cut the UK’s record deficit.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

But Mr Clegg insisted that the deficit had to be dealt with if prosperity was to be restored.

“There is nothing pro-growth about having this dead weight of debt around our necks, there is nothing pro-growth about spending 120m-a-day just simply on the interest on our debt,” he told The Andrew Marr Show.

“We need to deal with this, we need to have a plan to deal with it. It is not a cavalier plan.”

He dismissed claims the Government was cutting too swiftly, saying that the measures would be implemented “very evenly” over four years.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Writing in the Sunday Mirror, Professor Pissarides said the threat of a Greek-style debt crisis was “minimal” and Mr Osborne should have been more concerned about the economy.

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Douglas Alexander said the spending review had “failed the fairness test”.

“It is simply wrong to have a deficit reduction programme which takes more from Britain’s children than from Britain’s banks,” he said.

The he said Mr Osborne’s cuts were part of a ‘political strategy’.

Related topics: