Spring Statement: Slump in living standards to reach post-war low as Rishi Sunak banks on short-term pain for long-term gain – The Yorkshire Post says

The irony. Fast forward three decades and Rishi Sunak faced a ‘double whammy’ of his own – the costs of the Covid pandemic and the Ukraine war – in his difficult Spring Statement.

Spring Statement balancing act for Rishi Sunak over cost of living and long-term challenges like social care and energy security – The Yorkshire Post says

And this invidious backdrop explains why the Chancellor’s speech will be remembered for its most significant omission – an official calculation that Britons are facing the biggest drop in living standards this year since the Second World War.

A less than assured Mr Sunak clearly hopes that the Office for Budget Responsibility’s analysis is unduly pessimistic amid the continuing uncertainty of the Ukraine crisis, and that inflation does not reach 8.7 per cent as forecast.

Yet the fact that he sidestepped this appraisal, and the OBR’s separate decision to downgrade growth so starkly, left Mr Sunak appearing diminished as he tried to appease Tory MPs with promises of a pre-election tax cuts rather than address the country at large on the seriousness of hardship now facing families and businesses.

Now the Richmond MP contends that his stewardship of public finances meant that he could afford to cut fuel duty, scrap VAT on energy saving materials and raise the National Insurance threshold.

These are significant measures in addition to the £150 council tax rebate, and £200 temporary reduction in household fuel costs, as the economic emergency – one being exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – grows by the day.

But these measures are more than offset by the increased taxes and higher prices – precisely what the Tories cautioned against in 1992 – that are already seeing Yorkshire firms go out of business and working families on low incomes plunged into poverty. Warm words do not heat homes.

And while there remains residual sympathy for Mr Sunak – his speech came on the second anniversary of the first Covid lockdown – he did appear, at times, to be in denial about the scale of the unfolding catastrophe.

He resisted calls to introduce an essential users rebate so hauliers, carers, food producers and other essential workers could see a greater reduction in the fuel duty that they pay.

He struggled to explain how hard-up families who use pre-payment meters to heat their homes will access the £200 refund – an inexcusable oversight.

And he only made one passing reference to levelling up – the London Government’s flagship economic policy – when investment in the North, and left behind areas, has never been more urgent.

As such, Rishi Sunak will be hoping that short-term pain – and inflation is already at a 30-year high – leads to long-term gain for hardworking families as Covid and Ukraine prove to be a very costly ‘double whammy’. The question now is whether this is a price worth paying for all those people who face the real prospect of losing their jobs, homes and self-esteem because the Chancellor miscalculated the response to the cost of living crisis at this time.

Support The Yorkshire Post and become a subscriber today. Your subscription will help us to continue to bring quality news to the people of Yorkshire. In return, you’ll see fewer ads on site, get free access to our app, receive exclusive members-only offers and access to all premium content and columns. Click here to subscribe.