The Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride has accused the Chancellor of going into hiding as the economy is “flatlining.”
The UK’s borrowing costs are surging and the pound is sinking and Stride asked in the Commons “where it the Chancellor?”
The Shadow Chancellor was allowed to ask an urgent question, he said it is with “bitter regret” Rachel Reeves is “nowhere to be seen” as the surge in borrowing costs has resulted in 30-year gilts hitting levels that has not been seen since 1998 and 10-year gilt yields are reaching levels to post-2008.
The pound has fallen against the dollar and has fallen from $1.34 seen in last summer to a 15-month low of $1.23.
Stride appeared in the House of Commons to ask his urgent question, the Chancellor did not show up and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones took her place.
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Stride told MPs, “Every pound we spend on debt interest is money we cannot spend on the public’s priorities.
“The Government’s decision to let rip on borrowing means that their own tax rises will end up being swallowed up by the higher borrowing costs at no benefit to the British people.
“Far from this Government laying the foundations for a stronger economy, the Chancellor is squandering the endeavours of millions of hardworking people up and down our country who are now having to pay the price for yet another socialist government taxing and spending their way into trouble. Does (Jones) not now accept that it is time to change course?”
Chief Secretary to the Treasury insist that the markets are functioning “in an orderly way,” adding, “He asks me about the fiscal rules – as I said in my statement just now, they are non-negotiable.
“As the Chancellor set out at the budget we have two fiscal rules – one that day-to-day spending should be met by tax receipts and the second that debt should be falling as a size of the economy.”
Michiel Tukker, senior European rates strategist at ING said, “Myriad factors contributed to the stretch higher, including Labour’s spending ambitions, sticky inflation, higher US rates and supply pressures.
“We still see gilt yields settling lower later in the year, but as long as these factors linger, a change in direction may take some time.”
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