Member News
The prime minister has warned that eliminating the UK's budget deficit is the only way to restore economic growth in Britain.
David Cameron told business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos that sorting out the UK's debt remains top of his priorities.
He said the economy is making "progress" and will speak of the need for new factories to be built and their products brought to market.
The prime minister added: "We can't just flick on the switch of government spending or pump the bubble back up.
"Making this transformation - and it is a transformation - requires painstaking work and it takes time.
"It involves paying down billions of pounds of debt. New plants and factories need to be built. New products designed. New innovations taken to market. New businesses nurtured.
"It's going to be tough - but we must see it through. The scale of the task is immense, so we need to be bold in order to build this economy of the future.
"The British people know these things. They understand there are no shortcuts to a better future."
The speech comes just days after the latest growth figures revealed the UK economy had experienced an unexpected 0.5 per cent downturn in the final quarter of 2010.
In a speech later today also at the summit, chancellor George Osborne will hit back at criticism from the Labour party by warning that the last government left Britain more indebted than most other major nations.
"As this week's growth figures demonstrate, the challenge is particularly acute in the UK," he will say.
"Over the last decade our economy became perhaps the most extreme example of any major economy of the dangerous imbalances that now need to be unwound."
Have your say...
Please enter your comments below.