George Osborne today pledged to match Labour’s public spending plans for the next three years, blowing apart Gordon Brown’s claims that a Conservative Government would cut public services.
Writing in today’s Times, the Shadow Chancellor announced the Conservatives would increase spending by 2% in the financial years 2008-09 and 2010-11, with a review in 2009 to determine the level of spending in the final year.
“The result of adopting these spending totals is that under a Conservative Government there will be real increases in spending on public services, year after year. The charge from our opponents that we will cut services becomes transparently false.”
With the economy growing faster than public spending at a rate of 2.75%, the Conservative plans should “create the headroom for sustainably lower taxes,” the Shadow Chancellor added.
He also used the article to reiterate Conservative commitments to simplifying the tax system and moving away from taxes on income to taxes on pollution.