Backing UK plc
Chancellor thanks business leaders for supporting unpopular measures
GEORGE Osborne reaffirmed his backing for business as he said the UK was a “chink of light cutting through the global gloom”.
The Chancellor told a group of Britain’s biggest bosses gathered in Davos that his door was “always open” to them and called on the business community’s support to ensure continued economic growth.
Mr Osborne said he was thankful for the business leaders’ support. Referencing the last time he spoke at the same lunch four years ago, he described how some were calling on him to implement an economic “Plan B”.
“But you – the British business community – never wavered. You kept faith with our plan – plan A,” he said.
Mr Osborne admitted that corporate tax reduction measures he had put in place over the past six years would nev- er win votes, but said they had come from a “deeply held” belief in enterprise and free markets. He claimed that such measures would add up to £100bn over this decade.
Mr Osborne also touched on global markets, repeating his comments from a fortnight ago when he spoke of a cocktail of global risks; those include the Chinese economy, he said, but despite the market sell-off, the Chancellor said now was not the time to withdraw support. Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, supported Mr Osborne’s views on the UK economy. In an interview with The Wall Street
Journal, Mr Carney said the UK’s “underlying fundamentals are solid”.
“This isn’t a debt-fuelled recovery. People are consuming out of income. Consumer confidence is at the highest level in a decade and investment confidence is right up there,” he said.