Rishi Sunak has claimed his budget will deliver a stronger economy fit for a new age of optimism.
In comments released by the Treasury ahead of the chancellor’s address to MPs in the Commons on Wednesday, Mr Sunak said the budget will commence the work of preparing for a new economy post-COVID.
An economy of higher wages, higher skills, and rising productivity. Of strong public services, vibrant communities and safer streets, he said. An economy fit for a new age of optimism. That is the stronger economy of the future.
Much of the contents of the chancellor’s economic set piece are already known, following a raft of announcements in recent days. Extra funding for the NHS, more money for local transport, an end to the public sector pay freeze and rises in the national living wage and minimum wage have all been pre-trailed.
Other measures announced already include:
- £1.4bn to encourage foreign investment into UK businesses and attract overseas talent
- £700m to be spent mainly on the new post-Brexit borders and immigration system, as well as a new maritime patrol fleet
- £435m for victims services, crime prevention and the Crown Prosecution Service
- £560m for adult maths coaching to help increase numeracy
- A six-month extension to the COVID recovery loan scheme to June 2022
- The announcements on pay, which will take effect in April, are the most high-profile so far.
However, critics have pointed out that the end of the Universal Credit uplift, an upcoming 1.25% rise in National Insurance and continuing cost of living pressures, including rising petrol prices and soaring energy bills, will mean that many of those who see their salaries bumped up will not be much better off in real terms, if at all.
We need an emergency children’s budget, with £15bn for schools catch-up funding as recommended by the government’s own adviser. Parents and children who have sacrificed so much during the pandemic deserve a fair deal.
Instead this budget looks set to treat education and our children’s future as an afterthought. You can’t build a strong economy without investing in younger generations and allowing them to fulfil their potential.
Ian Blackford, Westminster leader of the SNP, warned the chancellor he must not short-change Scotland, calling for a multi-billion-pound Brexit Recovery Fund to provide Scotland with compensation and to ensure proper financial support for struggling businesses and industries.
With Brexit playing a major role in the ongoing severe staffing shortages, rotting food in the fields, empty supermarket shelves, plunge in UK exports, and rising cost of goods and services, the chancellor must wake up and smell the coffee before that also ends up running out in our stores, he said.