Spending growth to slow - Darling

Mr Darling said he hoped to halve the deficit within five years

The UK will have to "live within our means" and oversee a slowdown in public spending growth, Chancellor Alistair Darling has warned.

But the chancellor declined to endorse cabinet colleague Andy Burnham's claim that health spending would keep rising.

Mr Darling said he "quite deliberately" stated in his Budget he had not yet allocated post-2011 funding.

In Monday's Times, Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said all parties should admit there will be spending cuts.

In his annual Mansion House speech tonight, Mr Darling is expected to say that financial regulators need to ask harder questions in the wake of the credit crunch.

'Very substantial'

On the BBC Radio 4's Today programme, the chancellor said that while it was important to maintain spending during the recession, "in the medium term, we've got, like every other country, to live within our means".

Mr Darling said after 2011, spending would "grow at a much smaller rate than it has done in the past" and that he hoped to halve the deficit within five years.

Asked about remarks by Mr Burnham on Channel 4 News that Labour "will continue to maintain growth in health spending in the following period", Mr Darling said he could not make commitments about departmental funding after 2011.

But he said "no-one can be in any doubt" that health had been one of Labour's priorities.

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Mr Darling added: "I quite deliberately said at the budget that I was not going to make allocations between departments after 2011 now because of the uncertainty that we have in the economy.

"What I'm saying to you is that we've had a very substantial period of growth in health and education and other services as well.

"I want to be able to be in a position to continue to improve the health service, to continue to improve education, because that's vital to the county's future."

Mr Darling's comments come after a lengthy row between the two largest parties over spending.

Labour accuse the Tories of planning "massive" cuts in after the next election.

The Conservatives deny this, saying Labour is also planning to cut future public spending and has mismanaged the economy.

Writing in the Times, Mr Osborne said it was "ridiculous to pretend there won't be cuts" in the future.

He said both the Tories and Labour should have the confidence to tell the public the UK faces a "debt crisis".

Last week, Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley appeared to suggest that, in order to protect spending on the NHS and schools, a future Conservative government would cut expenditure in other areas by a total of 10% between 2011 and 2015.

The Conservatives said he had been working from Labour's own figures from the last Budget but the prime minister accused the Tories of planning "savage" public spending cuts.

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