Andy Burnham insists Budget subsequent month ‘will not take dangers’ with residing requirements
The Prime Minister – who returned to work today after the death of his father – admitted the first Budget of his premiership would be “challenging” due to the knock-on effects of the Iran war.
Andy Burnham says Chancellor John Healey will show ‘highest degree of prudence to the running of the economy’(Image: POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Andy Burnham has insisted he won’t take risks with people’s living standards at next month’s high-stakes Budget as the cost of living continues to bite.
The Prime Minister, who returned to work today after the death of his father, admitted the first Budget of his premiership would be “challenging” due to the knock-on effects of the Iran war.
But he insisted the UK economy was showing signs of”resilience across the board” – despite the latest official figures on Wednesday showing an uptick in inflation.
Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures revealed that inflation increased to a five-month-high of 3.1% last month as higher fuel prices and airfares pushed up the cost-of-living.
It comes as unions urge Chancellor John Healey to move further and faster on the cost of living to help cash-strapped families across the country.
At the TUC conference this week in Brighton, the government faced demands to usher in a windfall tax on banks’ bumper profits to fund a cut in sky-high energy bills. Other union chiefs also repeated calls for a tax on the assets of the super-rich while cutting bills for struggling voters.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the Budget on October 28, the PM said: “It is going to be challenging, because the picture around the world is challenging, particularly the situation in the Middle East, and we will look carefully at all those things.
“We won’t take risks with people’s living standards or with the economy as a whole, so we will take it all into account.
“It’s why we wanted to do an earlier Budget, we didn’t want to leave a long period of speculation, I think that’s been shown now to be the right decision and it will mean taking whatever action we can to help people while also making sure we apply the highest degree of prudence to the running of the economy.”
But the Prime Minister also said during a visit to McLaren’s factory in Woking that Britain is not along in feeling the pressures of inflation. He said: “To the extent to which we’ve got inflationary pressure it’s driven by the situation in the Middle East, and of course that is also causing problems on markets around the world, so Britain is not alone, everyone is feeling those pressures.
“But it does mean the Chancellor and I will take those issues fully into account as we approach the Budget next month.
“With inflation where it is, and it is a concern, it’s more important that I do what I can to take the pressure off people from a cost of living point of view, and it’s why VAT will come off electricity bills in a few weeks time, it’s why we’re taking action on bus fares and other things, just to give people that little bit of help, and that will need to continue.
“But there’s a lot of resilience n the British economy, and here today a huge vote of confidence in Britain from McLaren, one of our world class manufacturers, and it’s wonderful to see the investment they have been making here and in Rotherham, and it’s a sign of confidence long-term in the British economy.”
It comes after his former adviser Andy Haldane – who is also an ex-chief economist at the Bank of England – told LBC News on Tuesday: “The market now suspects that this is a traditional tax-and-spend socialist government with better Tiktok videos.”
But Mr Burnham dismissed the remark, saying: “That doesn’t tell the story. I mean, we are not that. Already, I have taken difficult decisions in this job in relation to reprioritising Government spending, putting digital ID on hold for instance, so it’s not the case that we aren’t going to take difficult decisions. We will take difficult decisions to make sure the economy remains on track.”
