‘Boring does not prevent it from being dangerous’: What to expect from Burnham’s first Budget
Don’t tell John Healey this is a boring Budget. ‘We have to get people out of this frame of mind that the only way to judge a Budget’s significance is the size of its tax line,’ complains one Treasury official of what is being billed as a ‘steady as she goes’ statement by the Chancellor next Wednesday. With green shoots of growth finally showing themselves after back-to-back Budgets by Rachel Reeves, which hiked tax by £75 billion, Healey’s team is making a virtue of fiscal minimalism. ‘The worst thing to do at that moment would be a Budget that pulls huge levers and risks shutting off some of that economic growth,’ one aide says. Another has had the history books out.
