Economic damage from Brexit will be up to 10 times boost from Budget spending hike

• The economic damage from Brexit will be up to 10 times the probable boost from the chancellor’s Budget plans to hike public spending, economists warn today.
• Sajid Javid’s ambition to dramatically boost growth to 2.75 per cent a year – more than double the current rate – has also been branded “unrealistic” by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR). Instead, it predicts the UK economy will continue to suffer a “slow puncture” after years of low growth, because the dark clouds cast by Brexit will linger.
• Mr Javid’s first Budget, next month, will be used to unveil a £100bn boost for roads, rail, broadband and other infrastructure, with the aim to “level up” the country’s poorer regions.
• But in a set of gloomy predictions, NIESR warns the investment boost will take more than a decade to produce an annual GDP gain of only around 0.4 per cent.

 

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