between 2010 and 2013, the coalition government said that it had reduced public spending by £14.3 billion compared with 2009–10. growth remained low during this period, while unemployment rose. in a speech in 2013, david cameron indicated that his government had no intention of increasing public spending once the structural deficit had been eliminated and proposed that the public spending reduction be made permanent. in 2014, the treasury extended the proposed austerity period until at least 2018. by 2015, the deficit, as a percentage of gdp, had been reduced to half of what it was in 2010, and the sale of government assets (mostly the shares of banks nationalised in the 2000s) had resulted in government debt as a proportion of gdp falling. by 2016, the chancellor was aiming to deliver a budget surplus by 2020, but following the result of the 2016 united kingdom european union membership referendum, he expressed the opinion that this goal was no longer achievable.