Inside Politics: Sunak to deliver spring statement

Chancellor under pressure to intervene as Britons face worsening cost of living squeeze, writes Matt Mathers

Wednesday 23 March 2022 10:00 GMT

Chancellor Rishi Sunak (Justin Tallis/PA) (PA Wire)

Wednesday is a big day for Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, who is set to deliver his spring statement to the Commons. With Britons facing the biggest drop in their living standards since the 1970s amid rising fuel, energy and food costs, the chancellor has in the past few weeks come under intense pressure to intervene to help the country’s poorest families with their bills. But if the noises coming from the Treasury in recent days are anything to go by, there will be no Covid pandemic-style financial packages and no blank cheques to help with rising prices exacerbated by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Sunak has himself warned that government “can’t solve every problem” and any measures announced today – such as a 5p cut to fuel duty, raising the national insurance contributions threshold or a slight cash injection to benefits – will only tinker around the edges of a cost of living squeeze in which families bills are set to rise by hundreds of pounds. Martin Lewis, the Money Saving Expert founder, said earlier this week that Britons are facing a “fiscal punch in the face” come April, when the NI rise bites and the energy price cap is removed. The problem for Sunak is that it could be him and his party who get a bloodied nose when voters head to the polls at the next general election and decide the government has not done enough to help at a time of great need.

Inside the bubble

Our politics commentator Andrew Grice on what to look out for today:

At the cabinet’s weekly meeting, Rishi Sunak will outline his measures to cushion the cost-of-living crisis in his mini-Budget, which the Treasury insists we must call a spring statement.

For once, prime minister’s questions will be merely the warm-up act before the chancellor makes his Commons statement at 12.30pm. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, has the difficult task of giving Labour’s immediate response because it is not a full Budget – to which the opposition leader responds.

Coming up:

– Chair of the Treasury select committee Mel Stride on Times Radio Breakfast at 8.15am

– Shadow chief secretary to the Treasury on Sky News Breakfast at 8.20am

Daily Briefing

JUST IN: Rising prices across the board sent UK inflation soaring higher in February as the cost of living crisis intensified, according to official figures. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation rose to 6.2 per cent in February, up from 5.5 per cent in January and again reaching the highest level since March 1992, when it stood at 7.1 per cent. The rise is higher than expected and comes after prices lifted across food, clothing and footwear and a range of products and services. The ONS said inflation rose across 10 out of the 12 categories that feed into the index, with only communication and education not seeing increases. It comes after the Bank of England last week raised interest rates once again to 0.75 per cent from 0.5 per cent, and warned inflation will now peak in April at around 8 per cent – and could hit double digits if wholesale energy prices continue to soar amid the Ukraine war. In April, Ofgem will hike the energy price cap by 54 per cent and given the impact of Ukraine on gas prices, a further increase is expected in October, possibly by as much as another 50 per cent.

WHAT WOULD LABOUR DO?: On the cost of living squeeze, the Labour party is calling for Sunak to scrap the planned NI rise and is asking for a one-off windfall tax on oil and gas giants to help families struggling with their energy bills. Both Sunak and Boris Johnson, the prime minister, have ruled this out, arguing that it would deter North Sea companies investing in the transition to renewables. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, says the move would save most households £200 and the poorest, who spend a bigger proportion of their income on energy, around £600. Voters overwhelmingly support the policy, according to a new poll for The Independent. The survey, conducted by Savanta ComRes, who questioned more than 2,000 UK adults on 19 and 20 March, suggests the government is out of touch with its own supporters, with 81 per cent backing a windfall tax. Some 76 per cent backed it overall. Labour said it would support a move by Sunak to slash fuel duty but warned a 5p cut would only save Britons £2 when filling their tanks with petrol. “I don’t think that really cuts it in terms of dealing with the cost-of-living crisis,” Reeves said. We’ll have all the spring statement updates on our liveblog.

NUKE FEARS: Last night, the Kremlin warned that it could not rule out using nuclear weapons if Russia faced what it described as an “existential threat”. “Mr Putin intends to make the world listen to our concerns,” Dmitry Peskov, the Russian president’s press secretary, told CNN. “We have been trying to convey our concerns to the world, to Europe, to [the] United States, for couple of decades, but no one would listen to us.” When pressed on whether Putin would rule out using nukes, he said: “Well, we have a concept of domestic security, and, well, it’s public. You can read all the reasons for nuclear arms to be used. So, if it is an existential threat for our country, then it can be used, in accordance with our concept.” The Pentagon criticised the “dangerous” comments as it warned it sees no need to change its deterrent pressure. On the ground in Ukraine, the besieged port city of Mariupol in the southeast took another battering. President Zelensky says there is “nothing left” of the city, where some 100,000 residents remain trapped with no food, no water and no medicine. Fierce fighting continues near Kyiv, with both sides claiming to have made gains. Ukraine says it has regained Makariv, a town about 30 miles west of the capital. We’ll have updates from Ukraine on our liveblog.

BORDERS BILL FALLOUT: Priti Patel’s new Nationality and Borders Bill will make the UK “one of the most anti-refugee countries in the world”, a leading international charity has said. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which employs over 35,000 personnel across 70 countries, branded Commons votes on Tuesday night “shameful” after the Tory MPs ripped out amendments proposed by the House of Lords. Just four Conservative MPs ultimately voted against the government despite reports of a brewing rebellion over the home secretary’s most extreme policies. The votes come as 3 million people flee the Russian invasion of Ukraine, joining others seeking sanctuary from authoritarian regimes and war zones across the world. Opposition MPs warned that the bill could criminalise Ukrainians fleeing war and branded the new laws a “trafficker’s charter”.

WHATSUP BORIS: No phone messages sent by Boris Johnson before April 2021 are available for scrutiny because of a previous security breach, the government has admitted. It emerged as part of a court hearing during which campaign groups claimed there were “many instances” of government decisions made over phone messaging services being unlawfully deleted. All the Citizens and the Good Law Project have alleged that ministers are breaching the law by failing to follow policies by deleting messages and using private accounts for government business. On Tuesday, the High Court heard that Mr Johnson was among the ministers to have used personal WhatsApp accounts as a tool to communicate “critical decisions”. But Sarah Harrison – chief operating officer for the Cabinet Office – said Johnson’s historic messages were not recoverable because of a security breach last spring.

The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered. To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here. To sign the petition click here. If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page.

On the record

“Well, I mean, obviously, it will be for ministers to use their judgment in conjunction with their officials.”

PM’s spokesman when quizzed on who decides the saliency of messages exchanged between ministers via private channels.

From the Twitterati

“I do wonder sometimes what happened to people to make them like this. How do you wake up one morning and think: I’m going to give shit to someone who’s been held captive for six years and just got back to her family. That seems a day well spent.”