Today’s This Morning saw hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby speak to Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt following yesterday’s spring budget.
Talking live in the studio following his decisions regarding energy bills and childcare, Jeremy said: “There’s always a bit of a pantomime element to exchanges in parliament but what I was really saying is that in the short time I’ve been Chancellor, I’ve become very optimistic about our future as a country and if you look at the industries that are changing our lives, like technology and the internet, in the last decade we have become the third biggest tech economy in the world to China and America…”
Phillip said: “Nevertheless, yesterday was a massive strike day…NHS, childcare… these are the things people want to talk about.”
Jeremy replied: “Absolutely and what I wanted to say to people yesterday was that there are lots of challenges, we’ve just had a once in a century pandemic, we have a terrible energy crisis caused by Putin and Ukraine but actually there’s a way through this. I’m responsible for the economy as chancellor and businesses up and down the country are really struggling to recruit people now – a million vacancies – and I said let’s break down the barrier that stops people from working and there are lots of those. I was thinking about mums and dads who really want to work, who find that childcare is just so expensive and they end up staying at home.”
When asked why the free childcare for under three’s isn’t happening straight away, Jeremy said:
“Well, it’s going to happen quite quickly but I think this is actually the biggest childcare provision I think in my lifetime, it’s a huge change. We’re going to need many more nurseries, many more childminders… [but] let’s talk about speed. If you have a one year old now, by the time your child turns two your 15 hours of free care will start. If you get pregnant now, by the time you end maternity or paternity leave then the nine month old offer starts. It starts in a year’s time, next April… but I’ll be completely honest with you, it’s such a big change we are going to need so many more nurseries and we are cutting the cost of childcare by 60%. We will work really closely with the industry. We are not hanging around.”
He went on to add:
“It’s not something the Chancellor can solve overnight but what I did yesterday was show people a road map as to how we’re going to fill all those vacancies and break down those barriers. We have two and a half million people who are long term sick and disabled and many of them would like to work and the world has changed a lot in the last few years, lots of jobs you can do from home and we think many of those people would like to work and we can make it possible, so I introduced yesterday a voluntary scheme where we will spend about £4,000 per person to help them find a job they can do and I think for many that will be really welcomed. So yesterday I wanted to show people how we tackle it.”
“Over £3,000 on average per household for this year and last helped [those that needed it] with energy bills and other cost of living measures so we want to be a government that helps people who need it.
When pushed on the strikes happening now, NHS staff having to go to food banks and why he can’t seem to get them back to work, Jeremy said: “We are having negotiations now, I think they are actually going quite well and I hope we’ll hear something fairly soon. The discussions with the unions are going well. I’m hopeful we will have an agreement.
“What I would say is that we have been very flexible, we’ve offered more money than was on the table after the independent review process. The only thing we’ve said is we don’t want to do an offer that means inflation gets entrenched and we are having the same argument next year. We have to bring down inflation and that’s one of the Prime Minister’s key priorities. Discussions have been encouraging, so let’s see what happens, but if you’re saying as Chancellor am I prepared to be flexible to try and bring these disputes to an end, then yes I am.”
When asked if he feels confident and if we can get out of this economy crisis, Jeremy said:
“The first thing I’d say is that I’m very conscious that there are a lot of people in a great deal of distress who are struggling to pay energy bills and are finding day to day life hard and I think we should always stand ready to give all the help we can. But my kids are eight, 10 and 12 and they will be cheering me on when I do the marathon and raising money for my local hospital and when I think about the future, their future.
“I am very optimistic and the reason I’m optimistic is because I look at the last 15 years and we’ve had really tough challenges – the worst financial crisis since the second world war, the energy crisis, a pandemic, and yet how has Britain done economically? We’ve grown faster than Japan or France and we’ve got this tremendous potential. I was so proud that this country provided the world with one of the two big vaccines and saved six million lives around the world… so I am really proud of what we are capable of.”
Finally, when asked if he’s been asked to remove Tik Tok, Jeremy smiled, “I actually took Tik Tok off my phone a while ago. Was I told to? No, I decided to do it. It was difficult to take it off because it’s so addictive and some of those videos are very clever but we have to think about security concerns.”
Before revealing what his children thought about their first time watching their father delivering the budget. He said, “My daughter said, ‘Daddy, it was a pantomime wasn’t it?’…”
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