Tough Choices Ahead on Public Spending

10.57.40am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 12th Jul 2004

Commenting before today's spending review Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable said: "Today Gordon Brown will attempt to bring stability back to public spending after the famine and feast experienced since he came to power.

"First he starved public services and then gave them a boost of more than £100 billion. We will today see the tightest cash squeeze since Labour has come to power. This instability has already caused great damage and waste.

"Later Labour will unveil vast sums to be 'saved'. The Conservatives will be promising even bigger 'savings' from 'waste reduction' to cut taxes. And we will be lured into debates over sackings.

"They are both missing the point. The way to motivate and renovate our public services is by deciding priorities, as opposed to pretending to deliver on everything. It involves tough choices, a real commitment to decentralisation, and better handling of government procurement and PFI projects across the board.

"The Liberal Democrats would scrap four entire Government departments including the DTI and 41 ministers in order to cut back on unnecessary government activity to free money for frontline services. We would also relocate a large number of departments outside London. By scrapping ID cards we would be able to use the money spent on this to get more police on the street.

"My colleagues and I believe that tough choices need to be made and some areas of public spending have to be cut in order to finance priorities."