U.K. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt is staging a moment of high political theatre Wednesday, unveiling his budget to a crowd of baying lawmakers as consumers demand more help with the high cost of living and workers press for higher wages with strikes at schools, hospitals and the offices of civil servants.
“Today the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast that because of changing international factors and the measures I take, the U.K. will not now enter a technical recession this year,” he told the House of Commons on Wednesday. Most of the big-ticket items in the budget – an extra 5 billion pounds of defence spending over the next two years, increased funding for child care and help for workers saving for retirement – have already been announced.
The British Medical Association, which represents the fully qualified physicians known in the U.K. as “junior doctors,” says first-year doctors have seen their pay fall by 26 per cent over the past 15 years after accounting for inflation. The government says the medical association’s comparison to baristas is misleading because most doctors actually make more than the basic minimum salary and have much higher lifetime earning potential than shop workers.
Hunt’s other major goal is rebuilding Britain’s reputation for fiscal responsibility by reducing the public debt built up during the financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. The government wants to cut borrowing to less than 3 per cent of economic output and begin reducing debt as a percentage of output within five years.