Henry Smith MP has hailed the UK’s public finances as reaching a turning point following the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Spring Statement, with the independent economic outlook showing a solid foundation on which to build Britain’s economic future.

On Wednesday, 13th March, the Chancellor told MPs;

• Wages will rise faster than previously expected, with wages growing faster than prices in each year and reaching 3.3 per cent growth in 2023. 
• Employment will continue to rise, with 600,000 more jobs by 2023.
• The economy will continue to grow at 1.2 per cent this year, faster than Germany.
• The deficit will be £3 billion lower than expected this year, down to 1.1 per cent of GDP from almost 10 per cent under Labour.
• Debt on a sustained downward path for the first time in a generation.

Henry said;

“The UK public finances have reached a turning point, I’m delighted that our economy will continue to grow at a faster rate than Germany with the jobs market continuing to thrive.

“This is a solid foundation on which to build Britain’s economic future post-Brexit, with support for our world-class public services able to go up.

“The tax-free Personal Allowance will go up next month to £12,500 to cut income tax for hard-working people in Crawley and throughout our country.

“I also welcome the announcement of £100 million to go towards tackling knife crime, following the wider work of the Sussex Police & Crime Commissioner to recruit 200 extra officers.

“Following the campaigning of students at Thomas Bennett Community College, I’m particularly pleased to see confirmation that free sanitary products will be provided for girls in secondary school to tackle period poverty.”

The Chancellor also set out the Government’s priorities for Britain, announcing several new measures to ensure the economy continues to work for everyone;

• An economy fit for the future, investing in the infrastructure, skills and the new technologies which will shape the global economy. There is investment to cement the UK’s position as a destination for new tech, enabling passengers to have the option of ‘zero carbon travel’, investing in transport projects across the country and rolling out fibre broadband to nine more local authority areas.
• Supporting families after a decade of fixing the economy. Getting to this point has not been easy, and families have felt the squeeze, so a new £3 billion Affordable Homes Guarantee scheme will deliver around 30,000 affordable homes. Wages are being boosted with taxes being cut in addition to tackling period poverty.
• Supporting our public services because the balanced approach to the economy is working. This includes tackling knife crime with £100 million of new funding and building world-class public services by increasing spending by above inflation from 2020.

Making sure we leave the economy and our planet in a better state than we found it through staying at the cutting edge of Clean Growth, leading the world to enhance biodiversity and reducing our dependency on natural gas by increasing the proportion of green gas in our system.