Shadow Business Minister Dame Harriett Baldwin has criticised Chancellor Rachel Reeves for stalling UK growth. Baldwin claims Reeves' recent budget increased spending and taxes significantly, leading to reduced private sector investment and hiring. She argues this has caused economic growth to stall, with markets now questioning the budget's credibility. Report by Covellm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00The UK was the fastest growing economy in the G7 in the first half of last year.
00:05We had an election. The Chancellor then started saying some very negative things about the UK
00:10economy. And then in her budget at the end of October, she announced an incredibly large
00:17increase in public spending, £350 billion over the next five years, which caused her to add £200
00:25billion of additional taxes on the UK economy over the next five years, and announced another £150
00:33billion of borrowing. Now, those are absolutely huge numbers. And unfortunately, they've had the
00:39direct opposite of what she wanted. She wanted more growth. But unfortunately, the growth
00:45generators of the UK economy are the businesses in the private sector. And actually, they've reacted
00:51to that enormous tax rise by putting their hiring plans on freeze, by reducing the
00:58amount they want to invest in the UK. And growth has completely stalled as a result of the budget.
01:03And what you're seeing now is the markets reacting to that and saying they don't believe that this
01:08budget is credible. It's a shame that the Chancellor chose in her budget last October
01:14to throw such a broadside across the wealth creators and the job creators of the UK economy
01:20that we're now seeing growth at the best is flat, and potentially we're now in a recession.