British PM highlights reducing budget deficit, rebalancing economy
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Cameron said he would promote trade and fight protectionism and work with other international leaders to drive forward the Doha trade negotiations. He also vowed to work with European partners to push forward with free trade agreements between the EU and its key trading partners.
He highlighted concluding a trade agreement with India as a priority. Existing EU-India trade is worth around 50 billion pounds (about 75 billion U.S. dollars) per year he said, so the potential in an EU-India trade agreement for trade, economic growth and jobs was considerable.
Cameron also underlined his determination to be tough on banks. "The hardworking British taxpayer has just bailed out the banking system to the tune of hundreds of billions of pounds. It is time for the banks to repay the favor," he said.
He said banks would be reformed with the Bank of England returned to the heart of regulation an independent commission on bank structure would aim to make banks more responsible -- by getting to grips with the bonus culture and making them serve the real economy and not just themselves -- by opening up credit lines to businesses.
He vowed to work with international partners on a levy on banks.
Cameron's speech comes just over a fortnight after he formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrat party.
The new coalition government wants to demonstrate its ability to govern and its keenness to do so with a blizzard of reforms and new directions in policy. This week has seen major initiatives fleshed out on -- government debt, with cuts of 6.25 billion pounds (about 10 billion U.S. dollars) announced; education, with policies on freeing schools to govern themselves announced; welfare, which accounts for one third of the government budget, with plans to simplify the system and target cheats; civil liberties, with the Labor party's ID card scheme scrapped.
Further policies are expected next week, but all eyes will be on June 22 when chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne is set to unveil an emergency budget that will demonstrate in detail how the government aims to tackle the record public spending deficit of 156 billion pounds (about 230 billion U.S. dollars).
In a separate development, the last constituency to vote in the general election elected a Conservative member of parliament, bringing Cameron's Conservatives up to 307 seats in the House of Commons and further securing his coalition government's majority.
The vote in the Thirsk and Malton seat, a rural constituency in the north of England, was to have taken place along with all the other 649 seats in Great Britain on May 6. However, the death of one of the candidates caused the election to be postponed to Thursday.
The Conservative Anne McIntosh won, as she was expected to do as the seat is a safe Conservative one, with the Liberal Democrats improving their support in second and the Labor party losing support to finish third.
