Jeremy Hunt has vowed he would fill Britain’s more than one million job vacancies, while refusing to commit to tax cuts ahead of the next general election.
The chancellor faced scrutiny during a round of broadcast interviews after delivering his so-called “back to work” Budget, which included measures to incentivise the unemployed to seek jobs, such as childcare payments and tweaks to pensions and the benefits system.
Sitting down with BBC political editor Chris Mason, Mr Hunt was asked what the Conservatives had to say for their “dreadful record” of stagnant wages and a dire outlook for young people after 13 years in power.
Mr Hunt said young people can rest assured his Budget “is a growth plan that will mean there are better jobs and better opportunities for you.
“We’re going to fill that one million vacancies that companies up and down the country have, so they can grow faster.”
Turning to his plan for up to £9bn in tax breaks for businesses who make productivity-boosting investments, he said: “We’re going to encourage them to invest more with one of the most competitive regimes in the world.”
Mr Hunt said his measures had already been welcomed in industry.
“The CBI say that today we are now back at the top table for international investment attractiveness,” he said. “That’s a big statement from the country’s biggest business lobby. And that’s what we want as Conservatives, we want to grow our economy.”
Britain’s sluggish growth compared with other G7 nations was a talking point ahead of the Budget, and critics have said Mr Hunt has done little to remedy the situation.
Defending his position, Mr Hunt said: “We had half a million people who left the labour force during the lockdowns, that’s an effect you haven’t seen in other countries and that’s why I’ve announced the measures I’ve announced today to encourage people back to work.”
In Wednesday’s statement, the chancellor notably refused to bow to pressure from the Tory backbenches to cut taxes, turning the question to whether he will do so before the next election, expected as soon as late next year.
Speaking to ITV’s Peston show, he said: “My job is to do the right thing for the economy and then people will see that they can trust the Conservatives to get the economy growing. That’s the electoral dividend – I’m not interested in playing games.”
He said he had taken action in the Budget to “systematically” remove the barriers that stop people working, including extending access to childcare.
“So that is one of the big things that the business organisations like CBI have been asking for,” he said. “That is a transformational change for our economy, because after the Brexit referendum there was a decision by the country that we aren’t going to fill our vacancies from unlimited, low-skilled migration and this is the way that we address it without doing that.”
