He also said that borrowing and debt will be lower as a proportion of national income than previously thought over coming years, an improvement that Sunak used to lavish cash around, from new hospital equipment to local community soccer fields, as well as Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s long-term priorities to “level up” prosperity in the U.K. Sunak said the government’s independent forecasters at the Office for Budget Responsibility are predicting growth this year to be 6.5%, up from the previous prediction of 4% just a few months ago, and that growth next year will be 6%. It is also experiencing big price rises, largely due to the sharp pick-up in energy costs.
However, unlike others in the G-7, the British economy won’t have recouped all its COVID-related losses by early next year, and is likely to remain hobbled over coming months by a series of shortages that many blame on Brexit as well as dislocations caused by the pandemic. The economy, which suffered the worst recession among the Group of Seven industrial nations last year, has been recovering in recent months following the lifting of lockdown restrictions. Overall, Sunak painted a relatively rosy picture of the state of the British economy following the country’s deepest recession in around 300 years as a result of the pandemic. climate summit in the Scottish city of Glasgow within days. The alcohol tax changes certainly took up more words from Sunak than environmental issues even though the U.K. The changes, which take effect starting in February 2023, represent potentially good news for real ale, rose and sparking wine drinkers bad news for those preferring something a tad stronger such as certain red wines, port or sherry. “Our new system will be designed around a common-sense principle: the stronger the drink, the higher the rate,” the teetotaler Sunak said. Beer duties were first introduced in 1643 by his predecessors in Parliament, when they levied a tax on alcohol for the first time to finance the Roundhead armies in the English Civil War against Charles I’s Cavaliers.
Sunak criticized the current tax system, which raises more than 12 billion pounds ($17 billion) a year, as outdated, adding that the changes would not have been possible if Britain had remained within the European Union.