Miliband’s promise to cut deficit every year

ED MILIBAND will today pledge to cut the deficit every year if Labour wins the election.

In a last-ditch attempt to steal the Tories’ mantle as the party of economic responsibility, he will warn supporters that Labour faces coming to power in a ‘time of scarcity’.

Launching the party’s manifesto in Manchester, Mr Miliband will claim ‘not one policy’ in it would be funded through additional government borrowing.

He will insist a Labour government would ‘cut the deficit every year’ and have national debt falling ‘as soon as possible’, though he will not set a date.

Labour’s manifesto, published last night, contains a commitment on its first page to a ‘ Budget Responsibility Lock’. The party says this would be ‘the basis for all our plans because it is by securing our national finances that we are able to secure the family finances of the working people of Britain’.

Mr Miliband infamously forgot to make any mention of the deficit in his party conference speech last year, and polls show Labour lags far behind the Conservatives in trust on managing the public finances.

But Mr Miliband will today insist that Labour is ‘not only the party of change but the party of responsibility too’. He will accuse the Tories of ‘ throwing spending promises around with no idea of where the money is coming from’.

The Labour leader will pledge ‘strong, fair fiscal rules’ meaning the national debt falls and a surplus on the ‘current budget’ – applying to day-to- day spending, not capital spending – is secured ‘ as soon as possible in the next parliament’.

He will say: ‘The very start of our manifesto is different to previous elections.

‘It does not do what most manifestos do...It does something different: its very first page sets out a vow to protect our nation’s finances; a clear commitment that every policy in this manifesto is paid for without a single penny of extra borrowing.

‘The plan we lay before you is no less ambitious because we live in a time of scarcity. It is more ambitious because it starts from a clear commitment to balance the books.’ Policies in Labour’s manifesto include a £2.5billion NHS fund paid for from a mansion tax, a levy on tobacco firms and closing a hedge fund tax avoidance loophole.

It will also commit to 25 hours of childcare for working parents of three and fouryear-olds, paid for by increasing the banking levy, and smaller class sizes for five, six and seven-year- olds, funded by scrapping the free schools programme. George Osborne said Labour’s plans would ‘bankrupt’ the country, and put the 300-year- old union with Scotland at risk if the party were propped up by the Scottish Nationalists.

‘If you have an Ed Miliband/ Scottish Nationalist government, they will trash this economy,’ Mr Osborne told the BBC’s Andrew Marr.

He said the Tories had a ‘balanced plan’ to finish the job of restoring order to the public finances that involved cutting £1 in every £100 of government spending for a further two years. Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg accused Labour of ‘ playing Russian roulette’ with the economy.

Labour officials said ‘ any government led by Ed Miliband’ would not compromise on the deficit. That will be seen as a bid to ease fears a Labour administration propped up by the SNP would wreak havoc with the public finances.

Labour would ensure Premiership football teams give millions to smaller clubs, Andy Burnham has said. The shadow health spokesman said it would enforce a Premier League commitment to invest 5 per cent of the proceeds from lucrative TV rights deals in grassroots sport.

‘Playing Russian roulette’