Afternoon:
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Alistair Darling today declared that his peers in the G20 were agreed that it was too early to rein in the economic stimulus packages.
Trillions of dollars of taxpayers' money have been spent by the developed nations in schemes ranging from quantitative easing, to guarantees of the values of toxic debt, to car-scrappage schemes.
But despite signs the world economy, Britain excluded, is pulling out of recession, Darling said ministers were committed to keeping such life-support packages in place.
The Chancellor was hosting his fellow G20 finance ministers at St Andrews in Scotland to nail down agreements made by their countries' presidents and prime ministers in Pittsburgh in September.
“I think we can reach agreements on firstly making sure we don't remove support too early because the recovery is by no means established everywhere,” he said this morning.
High in his mind must be the fact that, while the US economy reported growth of 3.5% in the third quarter compared with the same three months last year, Britain was still contracting sharply.
Darling added: “Just as there was a consensus that we took action over the last year to stave off a serious downturn, there is a consensus that we can work together so that the next decade is one of growth and one of job creation.”
It is thought the ministers will discuss the idea of setting projections for their economies, which would then be assessed by the International Monetary Fund.
