The retail angle to the Chancellor's Spring Statement |
With all eyes on tomorrow's Spring Statement, David Lonsdale of the Scottish Retail Consortium considers whether the intent to avoid tinkering with the financial dials will hold. Mr Lonsdale will be among the expert panellists at The Herald Budget Briefing.
All eyes tomorrow will be on the Chancellor’s Spring Statement, and the Treasury has been at pains to stress this won’t involve major fiscal policy announcements.
Instead, the focus is to be on the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts for economic growth, investment, and public spending. In essence it’s a half-term report on whether the government is beginning to deliver on its pledges to reboot the economy and bring down the deficit, and ultimately the national debt.
This will come as something of a relief to retailers after recent UK Budgets which tightened the fiscal screws on the industry – principally the swingeing increase to employers’ national insurance contributions – and led to higher prices for shoppers.
Can the Spring Forecast bring fresh hope for Scottish firms?
However, it will be interesting to see if the intent to avoid tinkering holds given the recent feeble GDP growth figures and the upcoming parliamentary elections........