ANALYSIS

IF THERE is one central message from Rishi Sunak’s coronavirus Budget, it has to be “brace for impact”.

The Government’s £30billion package to cushion the economic crash that will accompany the pandemic is the biggest spending splurge since Norman Lamont’s pre-election 1992 “giveaway” Budget.

Just to give the coronavirus crisis some context, Alistair Darling pumped £20billion into the UK economy in his 2008 Budget when faced with the prospect of bank machines closing down during the credit crisis. This is a whole £10billion more.

In a direct echo of the Labour chancellor, Sunak used the exact same words when he said the Government’s response to coronavirus would be “temporary, timely and targeted”.

It shows chancellors might change but the Treasury stays the same.

There was a dig from the SNP’s Ian Blackford that Sunak was, in fact, reading someone else’s speech, that of No10 adviser Dominic Cummings, who saw off the independently minded Sajid Javid from No11.

People in glass houses. Just over a month ago, the SNP’s Scottish Finance Secretary Kate

Forbes had to read out a speech meant to be delivered by the disgraced Derek Mackay.

Just like Forbes, Sunak made a good fist of it, his delivery confident, clarity in his purpose and even a gag or two thrown in.

But, like all Budget speeches, the presentation hides a lot.

In about a fortnight, 20 per cent of the workforce could be self-isolating because of coronavirus.

But the Chancellor’s sick pay measures on Covid-19 are pretty thin gruel for low-paid workers.

Statutory sick pay is unchanged at £94 per week. For a full-time worker on minimum wage, this represents a loss of income of about threequarters.

On top of that, seven million people aren’t entitled to statutory sick pay at all, ironically about one in five workers.

They can claim Universal Credit but at £73 a week, UC is one fifth of a full-time minimum wage. The budget increases it by just £1.25 a week.

Sunak has taken a massive financial gamble against coronavirus and the elephant in the room – a hard Brexit.

You have to suspect a lot of the spending commitments are to form a crashpad against leaving the EU with a big bump.