9: Spring Statement

Rishi Sunak delivered his Spring Statement earlier this week. The Chancellor pointed out the support he was giving to many financially troubled households, but the truth is that most people will suffer financial hardship in the coming years as the UK suffers the worst fall in living standards since records began.

The Chancellor has been heavily criticised from all sides for not doing more to help hard-pressed people across the UK facing rising energy bills, rising prices and rising taxes. Media reaction to Rishi Sunak’s Spring Statement has also been negative and some of the numbers around the cost-of-living crisis and the UK economy are even more worrying...

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which provides independent analysis of the UK’s public finances, forecasts a 3.8% rise in GDP in the 2022 calendar year, down from an earlier 6% prediction, and growth of just 1.8% next year as the post-Covid recovery slows down. The OBR also predicts that inflation, which has just hit a 30-year high of 6.2%, is likely to peak at a 40-year high of 8.7% in Q4 2022.

Alarming government borrowing figures have also been making waves. The Treasury will spend more servicing the UK's ballooning national debt in 2022 than it will on almost every other government department. In the next financial year, debt interest payments will amount to £83bn – the highest ever on record and almost four times the amount that was spent pre-pandemic.