The UK’s economy will grow more slowly than predicted over the next four years, according to a forecast that was published early in a Budget blunder.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast gross domestic product would grow by 1.5% this year, an increase from its earlier 1% forecast.
But it downgraded growth in 2026 from 1.9% to 1.4%, in 2027 from 1.8% to 1.5%, in 2028 from 1.7% to 1.5% and in 2029 from 1.8% to 1.5%.
The OBR document also confirmed Rachel Reeves’s Budget “raises taxes by amounts rising to £26 billion in 2029-30, through freezing personal tax thresholds and a host of smaller measures”.
The freeze in tax thresholds will result in 780,000 more basic-rate, 920,000 more higher-rate, and 4,000 more additional-rate income tax payers in 2029/30, raking in about £8 billion for the Exchequer.
The freeze will extend for three years to 2030/31.
Talk’s Julia Hartley-Brewer is joined by former Conservative government adviser Claire Pearsall, economist Justin Urquhart Stewart and former Labour Party spokesman James Matthewson.
Credit to : TalkTV