Britain’s new finance minister, Jeremy Hunt, announced on Saturday, the day after his appointment by Liz Truss, that “tough decisions” would have to be made to rectify the prime minister’s economic plan. “A chancellor can’t control the markets, but what I can do is show that we can finance our tax and spending plans and that will require some very difficult decisions,” Jeremy Hunt told Sky News.
Jeremy Hunt was appointed by Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss on Friday to replace Kwasi Kwarteng, who was sacked amid an economic and financial crisis that has turned into a political crisis within the Conservative Party. This close friend of Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson’s former finance minister and Liz Truss’s opponent in the Downing Street campaign, has the mission of taking over the mini-budget announced on September 23 by his predecessor and very badly received by the markets. , much of the Conservative Party and the British population.
He felt “mistakes” had been made in this mini-budget that envisions massive spending and tax cuts with no clear funding. “The prime minister recognized (these mistakes), that’s why I’m here,” he said, adding that he shared the “fundamentals” of his economic project. “I want to be honest with people: we have difficult decisions to make, the last few weeks have been very difficult,” he insisted during his first public speech as Finance Minister.
“Some taxes will not be reduced as fast as people would like”
Specifically, he announced that “expenditure will not increase as much as people would like” and that he was going to ask “all ministerial departments to be more efficient.” “Some taxes will not go down as fast as people would like,” and “some taxes will go up,” he added, referring in particular to the new concession announced Friday by Liz Truss.
The Prime Minister had to give up maintaining the corporate tax rate at 19%, resigning herself to maintaining the 25% increase planned by the previous Conservative government. Two weeks ago, she had already had to abandon a tax cut for the richest households, in the face of anger, even within the Conservative party.
Source: BFM TV
