Britain is waiting for severe spending cuts as the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government unveils its emergency budget on Tuesday.
The coalition government, which in May announced measures to save £6.2 billion by cutting budgets of ministries, is facing a £156 billion budget deficit and has to plug this hole in finances soon.
Britain’s chancellor George Osborne has warned that the emergency budget on Tuesday will be tough. “We’ve inherited a truly awful situation. Unless we take determined and concerted action, we will find our country on the road to ruin,” Mr Osborne told BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. “We sit here as the country in Europe with the largest budget deficit of any major economy, at a time when markets and investors and businesses are looking around the world at countries that can’t control their debts. And so we’ve got to deal with that,” he added.
Financial analysts have predicted that between £25 million to £48 billion of fiscal tightening is needed to eradicate structural budget deficit. Britons are expecting rise in taxes and sweeping cuts in public spending affecting jobs, higher education and welfare policies.
Expecting a whole lot of public discontent, especially over potential sweeping job cuts and unemployment, the Confederation of British Industry on Monday urged the David Cameron government to make a higher bar of support for strikes a legal requirement. “This will ensure that industrial action can only go ahead if 40 per cent of the balloted workforce supports it, as well as a simple majority of those voting. This would prevent strikes going ahead based on a relatively small turnout of particularly active members,” the business lobby group said. However, the unions, former chancellor Alistair Darling and Labour leadership candidates Ed Balls and David Miliband warned that single-visioned deficit reduction would hard the economy recovery.