Business backing for Osborne cuts – Blancer.com Tutorials and projects

George Osborne has promised to see through the government’s spending cuts programme

The leaders of 35 of the UK’s biggest companies have expressed their support for the government’s plans for spending cuts running into billions of pounds.

The bosses of Marks and Spencer, BT and GlaxoSmithKline are among those to have signed a letter to the Daily Telegraph.

They write that it would be a “mistake” for Chancellor George Osborne to water down his programme for reducing the budget deficit.

The bosses wrote in their letter to the Telegraph that there was no reason to believe Mr Osborne’s approach would undermine any recovery.

They said: “Addressing the debt problem in a decisive way will improve business and consumer confidence.

“Reducing the deficit more slowly would mean additional borrowing every year, higher national debt, and therefore higher spending on interest payments.”

“The private sector should be more than capable of generating additional jobs to replace those lost in the public sector,” the signatories also claim.

BBC business editor Robert Peston says that Mr Osborne could not be happier that a group of influential people, such as the 35 business leaders, has at last come out and said they want him to make the deep public spending cuts that he has been promising.

However, some people would point out that these bosses may be experts at running businesses but that does not make them experts at how best to manage the economy, our correspondent adds.

Robert Peston said in his blog on the cuts that some of the signatories – such as Next chief executive Lord Wolfson and Paul Walsh of Diageo – were widely viewed as Conservative supporters.

But he said the intervention of others, including BT chief executive Ian Livingston and Asda chairman Andy Bond, would be seen as more surprising.

Mr Osborne has promised to see through the government’s spending cuts programme, saying it will “get us out of this stronger”.

The Spending Review will outline which areas of Whitehall’s budget will be hit the hardest, as the government attempts to reduce the £155bn deficit. The aim is to save £83bn in four years.

The chancellor joined David Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Chief Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander at the prime minister’s country residence Chequers to put the final touches to the plan.

Ministers are understood to have agreed an 8% cut in the Ministry of Defence’s £37bn budget, following tense negotiations.

The government has also announced sanctions to deal with benefit cheats, promising that anyone with three convictions could forfeit their rights to claim money from the state for up to three years.

Mr Osborne has pledged to continue funding for some “big infrastructure projects”.

Labour will unveil its own plans for the economy on Monday, setting out a £7bn “push for growth” funded largely by levies on the banks.