Britain is ‘winning the war’ to fire up the economy despite slugging growth, says Chancellor Jeremy Hunt
BRITAIN is “winning the war” to fire up the economy despite warnings of sluggish growth, says Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.
He responded to forecasts that the UK will be the worst-performing G7 country next year by insisting the priority has been tackling inflation.
High taxes and interest rates, and increased public spending, are blamed for holding Britain back, prompting experts to downgrade the economy’s performance.
Growth this year is now expected to be 0.4 per cent, down from a predicted 0.7.
And an earlier forecast of 1.2 next year is now lowered to just one per cent.
Mr Hunt said: “This forecast is not particularly surprising given our priority for the last year has been to tackle inflation with higher interest rates.
“But now we are winning that war, growth matters which is why it is significant that last month the IMF predicted the UK will grow faster over the next six years than any European G7 country or Japan.
“To sustain that we need to stick to our plan – competitive taxes, a flexible labour market and far-reaching welfare reform.”
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report pointed to welfare spending rising.
PwC UK chief economist Barret Kupelian said: “The OECD’s forecasts show the UK is stuck in the ‘slow growth’ lane, when compared to other large European economies.
“In the short term, we expect economic activity to pick up, mainly led by private sector activity and consumer spending.”