I look forward to a statement that hits people like me, rather than those who can’t afford to eat, writes Andrew Marr
26 March 2025, 17:47 | Updated: 26 March 2025, 23:09
Well, it wasn’t as bad as we feared. It was considerably worse.
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They call it a spring statement.
It felt more like a midwinter statement, cold and hard and dark.
According to the official figures, cuts to health and disability welfare payments will push 250,000 people, including 50,000 children, into poverty by the end of this parliament.
Some 3.2 million families are going to lose an average of £1720 a year - and some disabled claimants will lose more than £4000.
I know the surrounding economic circumstances are dire and aren’t all of the government’s own making: but well done guys.
Today we learned that to make more savings, the government is going to halve and then freeze the health element of universal credit - that is, extra money for people with a long-term illness or disability which limits their ability to work.
For new claimants it is cut to £50 next year and then frozen until the end of the decade. See, always winter and never spring.
Up to now, Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, had cogently explained her welfare cuts as progressively pro-work and driven by the need to reform a broken system, rather than by a Treasury looking for savings.
Today, that cover’s blown.
Do you know, one day I look forward to listening to a fiscal statement that hits people like me, rather than people who can’t afford to eat properly, dress well or live in a decent house.
Anyway, there were glimmers of hope for the country as a whole.
The office of budget responsibility - that is the economic body which, as it were, stands on the touch line with a plastic whistle and shouts at politicians to stop slacking and try harder - has cut its prediction of growth this year from 2% to 1%.
But in the next four years ahead, it is predicting slightly bigger growth, only by a few small 0.3 and 0.2 kinds of numbers - but better than nothing.
If, that is we get it at all.
Because senior ministers are much more worried about next Wednesday.
That’s when we should hear if Donald Trump is going to impose tariffs on Britain or exclude us.
The government seems ready to cut back or even cancel the digital services tax that American Tech companies so hate, in order to win Trump over.
But if he isn’t one over - and the guy is, let’s face it, pretty mercurial, - then these tariffs could rip apart all the careful calculations, graphs and projections we heard today.
Truth is, we are a struggling economy surrounded by bigger and more unpredictable rivals.
Like all senior politicians, the chancellor tried to look as if she was in complete control today. None of them are.
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Andrew Marr is an author, journalist and presenter for LBC.
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