Will Jeremy Hunt’s “budget for growth” achieve its goal?
Britain’s budget was a triumph over low expectations
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor of the exchequer, started his budget speech to Parliament on March 15th by hailing improvements to Britain’s growth forecasts. Thanks to better global conditions and the government’s own economic policy the country would, he said, manage to avoid a technical recession in 2023 (defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction). Later Mr Hunt ran through the actual forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), a fiscal watchdog: Britain’s economy would shrink by 0.2% in 2023 instead of the 1.4% contraction that it had predicted in November (see chart).
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Treasury island ”
Britain March 18th 2023
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