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Labour to outline spending plans Labour 'to review all spending'
(about 1 hour later)
The government will be "wise spenders, not big spenders", Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is expected to say. The government will review "everything" to do with its spending commitments as it deals with reducing the budget deficit, Lord Mandelson has said.
He is to say Labour will continue the economic stimulus and has a plan to pay back debt, without eating into the fabric of people's lives. The business secretary told the BBC that resources would be switched from "lower to higher priority areas".
Lord Mandelson will also tell an audience in London the Conservatives are making a major political mistake in their haste to cut public spending. Asked if this meant Trident or ID cards might be axed he said it would be "foolish to rule out anything".
Aides say the speech will launch Labour's fightback against the Tories. Lord Mandelson is due to give a speech later which aides say will launch Labour's fightback against the Tories.
Cuts criticised It comes as debate rages about how the government is aiming to halve its budget deficit - expected to reach £175bn this year - within four years.
The speech at the London School of Economics coincides with the TUC's annual conference and union criticism of the government over its plans to cut public spending. The business secretary told BBC Radio 4's Today: "There are various ways to go about accepting that we are entering a period of public spending restraint, in which we've got to be wise spenders, not big spenders.
Lord Mandelson will stress that ministers are not "oblivious to economic conditions", and want to be "wise spenders, not big spenders".
Polls have indicated voters are more in tune with the Conservatives who claim the dire state of the UK's finances means immediate cuts are necessary.
We do not believe that we should try to solve problems simply by throwing money at them Business Secretary Lord Mandelson TUC rejects claims of recoveryWe do not believe that we should try to solve problems simply by throwing money at them Business Secretary Lord Mandelson TUC rejects claims of recovery
But Lord Mandelson will say Labour will maintain spending levels until the recession is past, and then protect frontline services. "I simply don't accept, as the Tories and some of their friends in the media would have us believe, that the Labour approach to this boils down to the same thing. I believe there's a real choice."
"We should not allow ourselves to be painted as a party that is oblivious to economic conditions," he will say. He said the Labour and Tory "instincts" on public services were different, adding: "They believe in smaller government and a smaller state. That's why they are rather salivating about wielding the axe."
"It would not be right to turn the remarkable and necessary period of catch-up in public service provision over which Labour has presided into some kind of eternal doctrine: that social democracy is about high growth in public spending for its own sake, against which everything else we do is secondary. The government would be "stepping up efficiency savings".
"We do not believe that we should try to solve problems simply by throwing money at them." Lord Mandelson did not use the word "cuts" to describe the government's approach to public spending.
Lord Mandelson will accuse Conservative leader David Cameron of pursuing a "small state" at any cost. But he said: "It will mean switching resources from lower to higher priority areas which do meet the new challenges. I can't be clearer than that...
"The Tories and their friends are yearning for people to think that because there is a need for public spending constraint in the future, we face an era of deep, savage, indiscriminate across-the-board spending cuts, whoever is in power." "Everything is going to have to be examined."