Jessica BirdIn his response to the Spring Statement in the House of Commons today, Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride said that despite the positive OBR projections outlined in the Statement, the figures should be a “cold, hard reckoning.”
Stride said that despite previously growing at the fastest rate in the G7 about a year ago, the OBR stated that growth has been halved this year, as a consequence of Labour’s choices.
He added that during Rachel Reeves’ tenure as Chancellor so far, inflation will be “running at twice the levels forecast under [the Conservatives] in 2024.”
Stride said: “This is going to mean prices bearing down on households and on businesses right across the country because of [Reeves’] choices.”
He added that projections show unemployment likely rising over the next few years, despite Reeves’ “back to work plans“
Despite geopolitical trends affecting the market, Stride warned that Reeves was “the architect of her own misfortune,” and the reason that business confidence had “crashed through the floor.”
He added: “She borrowed and spent and taxed like it was the 1970s[…] The Chancellor likes to tour the television studios and tell everybody they should be thankful that she will not be ramping up taxes in this emergency Budget as she did before.
“But that will be cold comfort to the millions up and down the country waiting in fear and trepidation for the start of the new tax year, buckling under the highest tax burden – on her watch – in the history of our country.”
Stride called for “much-needed reassurance” for businesses that she would not raise taxes further in the autumn Budget.
Stride warned that the CIPD said a third of affected businesses would shed Labour, pointing to brands such as Morrisons and Tesco already having done so, while the Federation of Small Businesses said that, “outside of the pandemic, business confidence has been left at its lowest level on record.”
