Jeremy Hunt delivered his first finances as chancellor and stated he was “proving the doubters fallacious”, having inherited a dire financial outlook from his predecessor final autumn.
However, regardless of an enchancment, Britain’s economic system remains to be projected to contract this yr and residents are going through the deepest hit to their disposable incomes of their lifetimes.
The Guardian’s particular correspondent Heather Stewart tells Hannah Moore that getting folks again to work was the centrepiece of Hunt’s assertion. He unveiled a plan to offer free childcare to oldsters of kids beneath two as a part of a technique to entice them again into the workforce.
There have been additionally efforts to reform incapacity advantages and to ramp up sanctions for many who are on advantages and never deemed to be wanting exhausting sufficient for employment. On the different finish of the earnings scale, there have been tax incentives to these with giant pension pots to encourage them to not retire early.
However will it’s sufficient to haul Britain out of the financial doldrums? And, extra pressingly for Hunt, will it’s sufficient to salvage his get together’s status for financial administration in time for the subsequent common election?
{Photograph}: Andy Bailey/UK PARLIAMENT/AFP/Getty Photos
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