Gordon Brown has outlined the Government’s thinking on how it will invest billions of pounds to stimulate the economy and create potentially tens of thousands of new jobs.
In an interview with The Observer newspaper, the Prime Minister said that spending on public works programmes would lead to as many as 100,000 new jobs and act as a counter to the ongoing recession. Later, in an interview with the BBC, Mr Brown said “the Government must play its role” when the monetary system faced difficulties and the inflation outlook was benign.
The PM said:
“I want to show how we will be able to, through public investments and public works, create probably 100,000 additional jobs over the next period of time in our capital investment programme - schools, hospitals, environmental work and infrastructure, transport.
“The first thing we are thinking about is how we can help the flow of money to businesses; how we can get the banks doing what they said they would do after the recapitalisation - that is, maintaining the level of funding for small businesses and mortgages that happened in 2007…Our responsibility is not to walk by on the other side.”
The Prime Minister said only a fraction of the £18 billion earmarked for investment had been spent and that it was important to judge the success of the Government’s actions over several months and not by the first few weeks.
Mr Brown will tour a number of towns and cities around the UK later this week culminating in a full Cabinet meeting and public engagement event in Liverpool. An investment and employment summit is also scheduled to take place in Downing Street later in the month.
