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Brown sets 24 March date for budget

Date: Wednesday 10 Mar 2010

Brown sets 24 March date for budget

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has confirmed that the 2010 Budget will be delivered on 24 March, six weeks before the anticipated general election date of 6 May.

In a speech at Thomson Reuters in Canary Wharf, Brown said the Budget would take place in “two weeks’ time.” Brown also said that the government had guided Britain through an economic “storm” and declared: “We will do whatever it takes.”

Chancellor Alistair Darling later gave official confirmation of the exact date, Wednesday 24 March, in a written statement to Parliament. Darling will have to convince voters that the government can tackle Britain’s record deficit. He previously promised to more than halve the deficit in four years.

The deficit is forecast to hit around 12.7% of gross domestic product in the current financial year. Revised figures published in February showed that the fourth quarter gross domestic product (GDP) figure rose more than expected. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) revised its initial estimate of a 0.1% increase in GDP in the fourth quarter to a rise of 0.3%.

However, the revised figure still lagged behind the 0.4% increase in GDP that economists were expecting prior to the initial estimate released in January. New GDP figures are expected in late April, less than a fortnight before the likely general election date.

Brown today promised that the Budget will set out in more detail how the government will deliver on its commitment to restore the public finances while “protecting the fundamental public services that we all depend on.”

With regards to Fitch’s comments on Britain's triple A rating yesterday, he said: “Our debt is structured in such a way that the average maturity is about 13 years. It's a lot longer maturities than any of the debt you are dealing with in other countries.”

“We've been able to finance it on that basis without the same amount of rollover that's needed by other countries. I would also say the cost of financing this debt is still lower than the cost of financing debt when we came into power in 1997.”

“I believe we will maintain that credit rating,” he added.

Yesterday, Fitch warned that the next British government will need to do more to get a handle on the country’s deficit.

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