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Brown to sell off state assets to cut debt

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-10-12 11:33

Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown leaves a Service of Commemoration to mark the end of combat operations in Iraq, at St Paul's Cathedral in London October 9, 2009. [Agencies]

LONDON: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown plans to announce a sale of government assets aimed at raising 3 billion pounds ($4.8 billion), his office said Sunday.

Nonfinancial assets to be sold over the next two years include the Channel Tunnel rail link, the Dartford bridge and tunnel crossing the River Thames, betting company the Tote, and the government's 33 percent stake in European uranium consortium Urenco.

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Brown is due to make the announcement in a speech Monday. Downing Street released details Sunday.

He also plans to say that local governments will sell off another 13 billion pounds ($21 billion) in assets. The money will help finance capital investment and pay down debt, his office said.

Britain is suffering its worst recession in decades and the budget deficit, the gap between spending and revenues, is widening. But Brown has recently sounded cautiously optimistic about the economy.

In an interview published Saturday, he said the economy would grow by 1.5 percent next year, more than many economists have foreseen.

Monday's speech is part of a bid to counter arguments by the opposition Conservatives that only deep public spending cuts can slash the debt and turn around the economy.

The Conservatives propose raising the state pension age, tightening welfare programs and freezing the pay of hundreds of thousands of public sector workers.

Brown plans to say that slashing public spending would "cut the legs off from under the recovery and lead to higher deficits and debts down the line."

The economy looks certain to be the dominant issue in a national election that must be held by the middle of 2010. Opinion polls give Cameron's Tories a substantial lead over Brown's Labour Party, which has been in power since 1997.

Downing Street said Brown would call on Monday for "unconventional thinking ... to avert a Japanese-style lost decade of low growth and jobless recovery."