By Karen Peattie

RISING interest rates and employment issues, along with Rishi Sunak’s appointment as Prime Minister, dominated yesterday’s Go Radio Business Show with Hunter & Haughey.

Labour peer Lord Haughey, owner of City Facilities Management Holdings, didn’t hold back when he said: “What has happened to people and especially their mortgages over the last few weeks because of ‘Trussonomics’ is unforgivable."

Pointing to the new Prime Minister’s “real-life business experience”, entrepreneur Sir Tom Hunter said: “I don’t have an answer or a defence for Liz Truss but with Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak, the markets are seeing grown-ups in charge. Sunak understands how the world of finance works.”

Sir Tom described the UK Government’s decision to postpone its autumn fiscal statement to November 17 as “a good thing as it gives the Prime Minister a chance to get his feet under the desk and “look at the big problems in his in-tray”. He added: “It also allows the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to cost out plans.”

But he warned: “Taxes are going to rise and spending is going to come down. Sunak is on the record as saying he is not going to hit the vulnerable – let’s see if his words and actions match each other.”

Sir Tom, alluding to current “rampant inflation”, said that while one of the ways to control inflation is to put up interest rates, this would “really affect businesses and homeowners”.

Discussing employment in the UK, the business heavyweights largely blamed Brexit for the number of job vacancies being at an all-time high when the unemployment figure is at a 48-year high. “It just doesn’t stack up,” said Lord Haughey. “It’s Brexit. People have left the UK – that is the only explanation.”

Sir Tom, however, suggested that people not working because of health issues and many over-50s choosing to retire had led to 21.7 per cent of the working-age population no longer being available to work. “I think our employment inactivity rate is higher than most European countries,” he added.