Sajid Javid will set out his first post-Brexit Budget on March 11 to “usher in a decade of renewal”.
The Chancellor said he would use his Commons statement to herald a new chapter for Britain’s economy, seizing the opportunities that came from getting Brexit done.
Promising a spending spree to help "left behind" parts of the country, Mr Javid chose to launch the Budget process during a visit to the new £350 million Trafford Park tram line project in Manchester, underpinning the UK Government’s pledge to invest in northern England, which helped secure it its 80-seat majority.
“People across the country have told us that they want change. We’ve listened and will now deliver.
“With this Budget we will unleash Britain’s potential; uniting our great country, opening a new chapter for our economy and ushering in a decade of renewal,” he added.
The Chancellor will brief his senior colleagues at this morning’s Cabinet before taking Treasury Questions in the Commons, where he will underline the Government’s commitment to help tackle the cost of living for hard-working people and make good on the commitment to level up and spread opportunity, including by investing billions of pounds across the UK.
At the Budget, Mr Javid will update the Charter of Fiscal Responsibility with new rules, taking advantage of low interest rates to invest properly and responsibly, while keeping debt under control.
The Treasury made clear the Budget would “prioritise the environment and build on recent announcements to boost spending on public services and tackle the cost of living,” by investing in new hospitals, training thousands of new police officers, funding vocational education and giving the biggest ever cash increase to the National Living Wage.
During the General Election campaign the Chancellor made a decisive break from the policies adopted by his predecessors, promising to loosen constraints on borrowing to the tune of up to £20 billion a year for capital spending.
Promising an "infrastructure revolution" in his first Budget, Mr Javid indicated there would be up to £100 billion available for "transformative" projects across the country over the coming years.
In response to the Budget announcement, Labour’s John McDonnell said: "After a decade of wrecking the economy, we can have no confidence in a Tory Government delivering the scale of investment needed for renewal especially with a no-deal Brexit still on the table.
"The lack of foresight in not focusing this Budget on the threat of climate change is also criminally irresponsible. The Government has learnt nothing from the fires in Australia and the floods on Indonesia.
"This will be a budget of climate change recklessness not renewal," he added.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel