UK may face spending cuts until 2020

June 21, 2012

A pedestrian is seen walking past the London Stock Exchange in London. The United Kingdom may have to face spending cuts until the year 2020. – Reuters picLONDON, June 21 – Britain is only one quarter of the way through its plan to reduce the budget deficit and spending cuts may have to continue until 2020, the UK’s top civil servant was quoted by local media as saying today.

The coalition government which came to power in 2010 has said its spending cuts could go beyond the next national election in 2015, but few have suggested publicly that Britain’s finances are so bad that cuts could have to last for a decade.

Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood told a private meeting that the UK was only 25 per cent through its fiscal adjustment, the BBC reported, citing people who attended the meeting.

Heywood was quoted by the BBC as saying that spending cuts could run for “seven, eight, maybe 10 years” from the time the coalition government came to power.

Britain’s Maastricht treaty deficit – the standard European Union measure of borrowing – is forecast by the European Commission to reach 6.5 per cent of GDP in 2013, higher than any other EU state bar Greece with 8.4 per cent and Ireland at 7.5 per cent. – Reuters