“The banking sector is contributing £2.4bn while child benefit freezes and cuts will raise substantially more, so families take the strain while bankers grab the bonuses,” he said yesterday.
Johnson has accused the coalition of political motives for their short timetable for spending cuts over the need to face economic realities.
Ahead of Wednesday’s Spending Review, Johnson said ministers would be taking a “huge gamble with growth and jobs”, reports the BBC.
In contrast, he said Labour would halve, rather than eradicate, the deficit by 2013/14, advocating a steadier approach to addressing the deficit.
He told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One that Labour now wants a greater share of money to cut the deficit from tax rises rather than spending cuts – 60% from spending cuts and 40% from tax rises, compared with pre-election plans of 66% to 33%.
But he emphasized the opposition was not calling for higher personal taxation. Instead, he said the extra cash would be raised by a bank levy, the capital gains tax increase and the increase in the threshold on working tax credits already brought in by the coalition.
The government’s current plans propose spending cuts making up about 77% of the deficit eradication programme, with tax rises accounting for 27%.
Johnson said in his speech: “The coalition’s austerity strategy amounts to a huge risk with growth and jobs. By going hell-for-leather on cuts at a time when the private sector cannot be expected pick up the slack, they run the risk of leaving us with higher unemployment, deprived communities and a diminished society.
“The government needs to unlash itself from the mast and take a new direction,” he said.
Chancellor George Osborne received the backing of the leaders of 35 of the UK’s biggest companies for his spending cuts plans in a letter to today’s Daily Telegraph.
