Jeremy Hunt Wants UK Growth, But Is Aiming to Avoid Truss’s Fate
- Chancellor is focused on boosting investment, labor reforms
- But says tax cuts demanded by senior Tories are off the table
Jeremy Hunt
Photographer: Hollie Adams/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Just a year after Liz Truss’s failed attempt to jump-start the UK economy using unfunded tax cuts, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt have picked up her baton and are pushing their own supply-side boost to try to lift growth and fill a hole in the public finances.
Both see driving growth as the only solution to the country’s twin economic challenges of soaring national debt and high taxes. With a general election expected next year and the Conservatives trailing Labour in the polls, Hunt finds himself with little if any room to reduce the tax burden. Bloomberg Economics estimates the chancellor may even have a £9 billion ($11 billion) hole to fill when he gives a fiscal statement on Nov. 22.