Less than eight months ago, Rishi Sunak presented a Budget that was anticipating the ending of the pandemic’s impact on the UK economy. He announced extensions and end dates for the furlough scheme, the self-employed income support scheme, reduced VAT for hospitality and the £20 a week uplift to Universal Credit. To finance some of that expenditure, the Chancellor also revealed a 6% increase in corporation tax, deferred until 2023.
It is less than a year since Rishi Sunak presented his first Budget, after having been in the role of Chancellor for less than a month. His despatch box première featured an allocation of £12bn towards mitigating the impact of the Covid-19. Ironically, on the same day as Mr Sunak revealed that boost to spending, the World Health Organisation declared the outbreak a pandemic. Total expenditure in the U.K. on dealing with the pandemic is now estimated to be around £300bn.
