Rishi Sunak’s reality check with worse to come – The Yorkshire Post says

The Richmond MP laid it on the line at the outset of the most subdued speech of his Chancellorship to date. “Our health emergency is not yet over. And our economic emergency has only just begun,” he said before going on to warn that unemployment, borrowing and indebtedness are all expected to rise markedly next year.

And it was this confirmation that Britain’s bleak economic outlook will get worse, before improving gradually, that vindicated Mr Sunak’s difficult decision to freeze public sector pay, the NHS being a notable exception, and cut the UK’s foreign aid budget less than a year after the Tory election manifesto promised to protect the world’s poorest.

All this before the Chancellor gets round to deciding how to pay for Covid and identifying the taxes that will have to be raised – the extra money announced for social care will, in fact, come via further increases to council tax precepts.

As such, Mr Sunak’s commitment to help the low waged, one of his central commitments, now needs to be matched by a relentless focus to help private businesses withstand the current crisis and ensure that the wider economy can be opened up as quickly, and safely, as possible once Covid vaccines are approved and rolled out.

There can be no more mistakes in the Government’s pandemic response. More than ever, the Chancellor – and the country – now needs a thriving private sector to fund key services and begin to pay off mounting Covid debts which will be a feature of the economy for the next generation and beyond.

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