Chancellor George Osborne has made his first set of announcements in his third Autumn Statement.
The first half of the Autumn Statement focuses on growth figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Mr Osborne has two self-imposed targets for his time as Chancellor. These are to eliminate the structural deficit over the next five years and ensure that total Government debt, as a proportion of GDP, starts to fall by 2015-16.
He said: "In this Autumn Statement we show the Coalition government is confronting the country's problems instead of ducking them."
He said 1.2m private sector jobs had been created, saying "we are on the side of those who want to work."
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The OBR had recorded growth of -0.1 per cent this year which was due to over optimism by the OBR regarding net trade and exports which had been hit by the Eurozone crisis.
UK GDP growth is predicted to be 1.2 per cent in 2013, 2.0 per cent in 2014 and 2.3 per cent in 2015, higher than some experts have predicted.
The deficit had fallen by a quarter and is expected to be 6.9 per cent this year and continue to fall over subsequent years.
Mr Osborne said: "The deficit is still too high for comfort. We cannot relax our efforts to make our economy safe. The road is hard but we are making progress."
The second half of the announcements will focus on changes Mr Osborne is proposing to make to the economy and pensions. It has been suggested that he will make changes to higher rate tax relief, a cut to the maximum allowance to pension contributions and cuts to the lifetime allowance.
The Chancellor is still on his feet and further announcements are expected.

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