By IRNA,
London : The first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland issued a unique joint declaration Thursday, criticising the UK government’s spending cut plans aiming to tackle the country’s record budget deficit.
“The proposals to cut public spending to such an extent run the risk of stalling any recovery,” Alex Salmond, Carwyn Jones and Peter Robinson warned.
The leaders of the three devolved administration said that current plans are ‘too fast and too deep’ and could have a “significant and lasting negative impact on the economy, including people’s jobs, which would undermine the very efforts to address the UK’s fiscal position.”
“We believe that promoting economic growth is the best way to restore the health of our public finances and this must be our overriding priority,” their joint statement said, echoing calls by Britain’s opposition Labour Party and trade unionists.
In his speech to the annual Conservative conference in Birmingham, central England, on Wednesday, Prime Minister David Cameron claimed that only Labour opposed to the UK government’s deficit reduction plans.
The statement represents a rainbow alliance, being signed by Salmond, leader of the Scottish Nationalists, Jones of Labour, whose party is in coalition with Plaid Cymru in the Welsh assembly and Peter Robinson, the leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party.
Britain’s Conservative-led coalition government announced widespread cuts in an emergency budget after it came to power in May but the full scale will not become clear until it details its spending review on October 20.
The Trades Union Congress published detailed research in September, showing that the UK’s poorest 10 per cent will be hit 13 times harder by spending cuts than the richest ten per cent.