LONDON- Britain’s new finance minister Rishi Sunak will pledge billions of pounds to fight the impact of coronavirus on Wednesday, and the Bank of England might add its firepower to the attempt to stave off the risk of a new recession.
Sunak, in the job for less than a month, will deliver the first budget of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government against a backdrop of slumping stock markets and a rush by global policymakers to pump more stimulus into their economies.
The tax-and-spending plan has been billed as a chance for Johnson to direct investment towards poorer regions, where voters helped him to a big election victory in December.
A jump in public investment over the next five years, to what Sunak says are levels not seen since 1955, represents a turning point for the world’s fifth-biggest economy after a decade of austerity to narrow its budget deficit.
But with Johnson’s government now focusing on how to cope with an expected jump in coronavirus cases, Sunak has new spending priorities that could force him to relax the government’s self-imposed borrowing rules.
“I can say absolutely, categorically the NHS will get whatever resources it needs to get us through this and to respond to the health crisis,” Sunak told BBC television on Sunday, referring to Britain’s National Health Service. — Reuters
