LONDON: British finance minister George Osborne sought to court voters ahead of a May 7 election by pitching an earlier end to austerity, faster economic growth and lower taxes in future.
In his last budget statement before May's national election, Osborne said Prime Minister David Cameron's government had saved Britain's economy and would bring down national debt earlier than planned with a 20 billion-pound sale of bank assets.
Osborne aimed to blunt criticism from the opposition Labour Party that he was planning to slash back the state to pre-World War Two levels. He is now aiming for a sharply lower budget surplus by the end of the decade than he targeted late last year.
"We took difficult decisions in the teeth of opposition and it worked - Britain is walking tall again," Osborne told parliament. "Today I present the Budget of an economy stronger in every way from the one we inherited.
"This is the budget for Britain: the comeback country," Osborne said as he ended his hour-long speech, sitting down to roars of support from lawmakers and a pat on the arm from Cameron, whose central bet since 2010 has been that an economic recovery would turn into political gold for the Conservatives.
With an election only seven weeks away that opinion polls show is too close to call, the 43-year-old Chancellor of the Exchequer has been handed an unexpected windfall by a plunge in global oil prices and falling inflation.
The budget surplus is now projected to stand at 7 billion pounds in 2019/20, way below the 23 billion-pound surplus he was aiming at late last year.
But consistent with the government's message that the job of lowering Britain's debt is only half done, there will be plenty of cuts to come.
Britain's independent budget forecasters said British public spending faced a "rollercoaster" ride under Osborne's plans with much tougher cuts between 2016 and 2018 than anything seen in the last five years, followed by a surge in spending at the end of the next parliamentary term.
The OBR said the level of spending in 2019/20 would no longer be a post-war low, a statistic that Labour had previously used to accuse Osborne of pursuing an ideological drive to shrink the state.
With some of his guns spiked, Labour leader Ed Miliband said Osborne's plan would not be trusted by Britons.
"This is the budget that can't be believed," Miliband said. "He had an extreme spending plan yesterday and he has an extreme spending plan today."
A leading opinion poll executive said Osborne would shore up his party's support by resisting the temptation to relax his grip on the purse strings now.
"It's not going to set the world alight but it's the best thing they could have done for Conservative votes," YouGov research director Anthony Wells said. "He made the right decision in not going with the big tax giveaway."
ELECTION BUDGET
Britain's economic growth in 2015 was forecast to be 2.5 percent, up from 2.4 percent seen in December and Osborne said living standards would be higher this year than when he took office in 2010.
Growth in 2016 is now expected to be 2.3 percent compared with 2.2 percent in the December forecasts.
"We are seeing a truly national recovery," Osborne said. "Britain is working again."
The growth forecasts remain more modest than those of the Bank of England and others.
Though he had little room for pre-election gifts to voters, Osborne was under pressure to present a compelling case to vote Conservative on May 7.
He responded by announcing a cut to beer, cider and spirits duty and cancelling a planned tax increase on fuel.
Osborne also said that if returned to power, he would raise the point at which people start paying income tax to 10,800 pounds ($15,831) in the 2015/2016 tax year and then 11,000 pounds in 2016/2017.
The government has raised the allowance steadily since it came to power in 2010.
Osborne also plans to raise the earnings threshold at which people pay the higher rate of income tax to 43,300 pounds by the 2017/18 tax year.
In an attempt to cement his reputation as the 'austerity Chancellor', he said he would increase a levy on banks and launch the sale of 13 billion pounds of mortgage assets and 9 billion pounds of Lloyds shares.
Those sales allowed Osborne to announce that Britain would see its national debt as a share of GDP peak in the current tax year, a year earlier than previously forecast.
Critics will say that they are one-off windfalls which will only reduce debt temporarily, not durably.
"We will end this parliament with Britain's national debt share falling," Osborne said. "The sun is starting to shine - and we are fixing the roof."
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