The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, gave an important speech at the Labour Party conference last week, in which she appeared to shift tone to speak more positively about the economy.
Recently she spoke about the upcoming Budget being a “painful” one. As a result, there has been speculation on where spending will be cut and tax raised, which may have affected consumer confidence.
However, the Chancellor’s speech at the party conference concentrated on the positive results she expects to bring to the economy. She plans to grow public spending in real terms as she believes that investment by the government will help the economy to grow. There may be changes upcoming to the rules on government borrowing so that more investment is allowed.
Whether this means that the Budget will not be as painful as we might have been expecting is hard to know. As always, we will keep you posted on the Budget developments.
See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y50z5l1r2o
The latest Budget was packed with policy announcements, but according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), these policies will not really change the UK’s growth outlook over the next five years.
The Government has announced a £725 million package of reforms aimed at increasing apprenticeship and training opportunities for young people. While much of the announcement centres on tackling youth unemployment, there could be benefits for small and medium-sized businesses.