UK chancellor: Recovery will be 'choppy and difficult'

London (CNN) -- The road to economic recovery in Britain will be "longer and harder than had been hoped" and will require continued commitment to the government's deficit-reduction program, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne told lawmakers Thursday,

Speaking at a specially convened meeting of Parliament, Osborne -- a Conservative member of parliament who was appointed head of the UK's treasury in May 2010 -- said a reason for the recent turmoil in global markets was because the world had now realized how difficult it would be to overcome the "huge overhang of debt" many nations face.

He said weak economic data from the United States and its credit downgrade by Standard & Poor's last week, and the "crisis of confidence" that is spreading to the euro zone's larger economies, "did not come out of the blue" and all have unsustainable borrowing as a common ground.

"History teaches us that recovery from this sort of debt-driven, financial balance-sheet recession was always going to be choppy and difficult," Osborne said.

He also noted that financial instability in Britain's main export markets has contributed to the country's reduced expectations for growth.

However, Osborne said, Britain's program of deficit reduction had made it a "safe haven in the global debt storm" for investors troubled by a weak recovery in the United States and high debt levels in the euro zone.

He noted that gilt -- or government bond -- yields have come down to about 2.5%, which he said were the lowest rates in more than 100 years, and that "the UK's Credit Default Swap Spread, or the price of insuring against a sovereign default, was lower than Germany's."

"This is a huge vote of confidence in the credibility of British government debt and a major source of stability for the British economy at a time of exceptional instability," Osborne said. "And it is a reminder of the reckless folly of those who said we were going too far, too fast.

"We can all see now that their approach would have been too little, too late -- with disastrous consequences for Britain."

Osborne's opposition counterpart, Ed Balls of the Labour Party, disputed Osborne's analysis, saying anyone listening to the chancellor would conclude he was "either deeply complacent or in complete denial" about the real economic situation in Britain.

Balls said the government had been overly zealous in making cuts and had left Britain's economy "thoroughly exposed to this brewing global hurricane."

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