British govt ministers to have pay frozen another 5 years: Cameron

London

BRITISH government ministers will have their pay frozen for another five years as the government tries to reduce the budget deficit, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Sunday.

Cabinet ministers receive £134,565 (S$278,500) a year, including their parliamentary salary. Their pay has been frozen since 2010, when it was cut by 5 per cent as part of the then-coalition government's austerity efforts.

Mr Cameron's Conservatives, who won a surprise majority in this month's election, have pledged to find £25 billion of spending cuts over the next two years as they seek to turn a 5 per cent budget deficit into a surplus by 2018/19.

"We will continue to take the difficult decisions necessary to bring spending down and secure our economy," Mr Cameron wrote in The Sunday Times newspaper. "I've decided to freeze the pay of the ministers in the government . . . as we…