Reacting to the OBR’s latest report on the UK’s Fiscal Risks and Sustainability, David Bharier, Deputy Director of Economics and Insight at the BCC, said:
“The OBR has starkly laid out the maths. The UK’s fiscal options are narrowing with debt on track to reach 300% of GDP by 2075.
“The issues are obvious with interest payments already the third-biggest line of expenditure, and an ageing population set to increase the pressure on services.
“The OBR itself warns that further tax rises carry worsening trade-offs. Only sustainably higher productivity can provide an off-ramp.
“BCC research has long shown the ground-level picture among businesses: declining confidence, flat investment intentions, compounding cost pressures, and a growing sense that the UK is difficult to operate in.
“Growth happens when firms are empowered to make decisions: to hire, invest, export, innovate, and train. But for too long, successive government actions – from the handling of Brexit to the 2024 employer NICs rise – have been taken with no real thought for the reality facing firms.
“As the BCC’s Delivering Growth report sets out, every policy should be run through a single filter: does it accelerate business investment, exports, and productivity? That’s how we turn a corner and set the strong foundations our economy desperately needs.”
More detail on the OBR’s report can be found here.