As we await the Bank of England’s new forecast and policy decisions - furlough statistics released this morning show use of the job retention scheme still high, but down just ahead of lifting of lockdown at end March - 4.2 million. Cumulative £61.3bn spent supporting wages. Image
Bank of England: “GDP is expected to rise sharply in 2021 Q2” and recover to pre Covid levels over the remainder of this year “absent restrictions”...
Outlook remains uncertain.
Policy unchanged
Lost pandemic output now forecast to be made up within 2021, says Bank of england: Image
Bank of England projects GDP growth in 2021 will be 7.25%, so a material increase on the 5% projected in February, thanks to vaccine progress and Government fiscal support Image
Peak unemployment after pandemic slashed - assumed at nearly 8% before, now just 5.5%, thanks to extension of furlough scheme to beyond point of full recovery, stronger recovery, and less damage from pandemic than assumed...

That’s an assumption of 700k jobs no longer being lost
Bank of Eng, on back of surveys and spending data, says that vaccinated Brits feel safer, and say they are going to spend more going forward. Bank has upped its assumption about proportion of £130 billion plus in “forced savings” from pandemic now being spent - doubling to 10%.
Governor Andrew Bailey - “remains too early to judge” whether trade has been it by post Brexit transition period as forecast ... exports were hit than materially rebounded, imports remain weak, he says.
Bank of England draws attention to this ONS chart showing only 1 in 20 double vaccinated over 80s think there is a major personal risk from Covid, compared with half pre-vaccination - if echoed across ages would see big fall in voluntary social distancing, and big boost economy Image

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More from @faisalislam

7 May
One pattern to look for over weekend is impact of massive economic state interventions (in emergency)on politics.

No bigger policy impact than interventions that keep you paid & in a job, & then jabbed & able to regain freedom.

In theory would boost all incumbent Governments
…call is looking good as we stand - incumbents across Britain benefit from intervening to affect people’s lives during this crisis, like never before.

truly staggering to really consider how many Britons have been directly impacted by actions of Governments over past 12 months
incumbent party in England wins councils/councillors, 11 years into Westmin Govt

incumbent party in Scotland gains constituencies, 10 years into Holyrood Govt

incumbent party in Wales gets working majority matching best result, after 22 years in charge in Cardiff

Vaccine Vote.
Read 7 tweets
5 May
Extraordinary development that the US is now backing a pandemic waiver on vaccine patents - the WTO boss warned in an interview with me of “unacceptable iniquities” in spread of vaccines...
Biden’s trade Rep Tai has been seeing vacc makers - presumption was that the threat of a patent waiver was mainly a form of leverage... Tai raised issue in a bilateral with UK Trade Sec Truss last month highlighting “need to support production equitable distribution of vaccines”
In March my colleague @deb_cohen obtained the draft of discussions at WTO showing US, UK and Swiss pushing back against the efforts of India and South Africa - we discussed extensively on Newsnight - see this thread:
Read 4 tweets
29 Apr
NEW: Fishing groups decry failure to strike 2021 deal with Norway as a “disgrace” & “disaster”. UK Fisheries group say Government was “unable even to maintain the rights we have had to fish in Norwegian waters for decades”.

Say Norway will continue to export cod here tariff free
Defra confirms:

“We put forward a fair offer on access to UK waters and the exchange of fishing quotas, but we have concluded that our positions remain too far apart to reach an agreement this year.”
Operator of the UK’s biggest fishing vessel, currently in dock in Hull, suggests it may have done its last catch, and that all cod will have to be imported now, after failure to secure deals (apart from Svalbard) in waters fished routinely last year

Read 4 tweets
28 Apr
NEW:

Defra Committee cross party MPs release bruising report on “considerable trade friction” & “substantial” new red tape leading to “substantive & enduring” post Brexit costs for food exporters.

- Flatly contradicts in line 1, PM’s assertion of “no non tariff barriers”.
* Report calls for Govt to re-enter discussions with EU to lower new burdens on exporters through veterinary partnership. Says it wasnt achieved by Lord Frost’s negotiation “in part because Govt did not place sufficient priority on it resulting in creation of non-tariff barriers”
* the consequence so far of the non tariff barriers for food exporters, the MPs report says is not just “teething problems” but “imposing enduring costs” which may result in big business “shifting processing to the EU” and smaller businesses finding such exports “unviable”.
Read 9 tweets
23 Apr
Subpostmasters have their names cleared at High Court after incredible and awful Horizon IT scandal... bbc.co.uk/news/business-…
Hits home this one - my Dad was a subpostmaster, was pressurised enough with all risk piled on to small biz owners, & PO having veto on selling up... we just swerved Horizon -

the stories of honest hard working community servants criminalised by IT incompetence are just awful.
As others have said @PrivateEyeNews @rbrooks45 & @nickwallis deserve great credit for their championing of this story over many years eg here: private-eye.co.uk/pictures/speci…
Read 5 tweets
23 Apr
Full year government borrowing figures just released...

£303bn deficit in 2020/21, 14.5% of GDP, post war record, though lower than OBR projection of £327bn

Taxes down £34bn on previous year
Spending up £203bn (78bn on furlough/jobs support)
Interest payments on national debt now at 98% of GDP, was ...

down a fifth on the year before.., £39bn this financial year versus £48bn the year before
Also March tax receipts were basically same as last March.

falls in VAT, business rates, fuel duty, balanced off by notable increases in

Stamp duty
Self assessment
Capital gains
PAYE
Customs
Read 7 tweets

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