David Cameron is to warn that the impact of the Government's plans for reducing the deficit will be "enormous" and even worse than he had feared.
In a major speech on the economy, the Prime Minister will say the proposed cuts programme will affect "our whole way of life" and could be felt for decades, such is the scale of the debt problem.
His comments come as ministers prepare the ground for the emergency Budget on June 22, when Chancellor George Osborne will try to make serious inroads into the £156 billion annual deficit.
Mr Osborne and Danny Alexander, the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will on Tuesday publish the principles meant to underpin both the Budget and the spending review which will come later in the year.
The Government is desperate to persuade people of the need for what they call the "difficult decisions" they are set to take.
Mr Cameron will warn that nobody will escape the effects of the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition's strategy to address the deficit and growing public debt.
"How we deal with these things will affect our economy, our society - indeed our whole way of life," he will say at an event in Milton Keynes.
"The decisions we make will affect every single person in our country. And the effects of those decisions will stay with us for years, perhaps decades to come. It is precisely because these decisions are so momentous, because they will have such enormous implications, and because we cannot afford either to duck them or to get them wrong that I want to make sure we go about the urgent task of cutting our deficit in a way that is open, responsible and fair," he said.
"I want this government to carry out Britain's unavoidable deficit reduction plan in a way that strengthens and unites the country. I have said before that as we deal with the debt crisis we must take the whole country with us - and I mean it."
In an interview with The Sunday Times, Mr Cameron suggested that high welfare and public sector pay bills were high on the Government's list for cuts.
By The Press Association
