Rishi Sunak is the right man to face the challenges ahead

For his first Budget, the new Chancellor faces an unprecedented situation of Rubik’s Cube complexity

Picture the scene, deep in Wensleydale in my former constituency of Richmond, North Yorkshire, in October 2014. After a quarter of a century as the local MP, I had announced that I would not be a candidate at the next election. The activists of the Conservative Association were gathering to select a new candidate. Being from Yorkshire, they were not backward in stating their opinions. “Obviously we need someone who knows all about farming”, one said to me on the way in to the meeting. “Experience in local government will be important” said another, adding that they must have stood for parliament before. “Without doubt it has to be someone from Yorkshire” was a widespread feeling, reflecting the fierce and well-founded pride of their county in their own abilities. After all, they had listened for years to me telling them that nationalism had no place in Yorkshire as it was our job to help lead the world.

Then they listened to a variety of potential standard-bearers for their cause. There were indeed candidates who ticked these boxes, who came from Yorkshire, were steeped in agriculture, had served on local authorities and fought parliamentary elections. Some of them were very good – one was rapidly selected elsewhere and is now a minister.

And yet, for all their natural scepticism and conservatism, the Richmond Tories surprised themselves by choosing a British Indian, raised in Southampton, new to politics, with a career in finance and no previous connection to God’s Own Country. That they did so tells you something rather refreshing about the rank and file of the Conservative Party, so often assumed by Left-wing critics to be prejudiced or set in their ways. But it also tells you a lot about the man they chose, Rishi Sunak.

Rishi combines his obvious intelligence with an ability to relate to people of different backgrounds. He stands out because so many politicians cannot bring those qualities together. Early on in campaigning in Richmond, he turned out to be intensely practical. When he told me one day he was going to milk the cows on a farm early next morning I told him he was getting a bit carried away and having an advisory committee of farmers would be sufficient. But off he went milking, and indeed getting stuck in to every other aspect of the factories, food production and tourism that sustain the people of North Yorkshire.

This is the man who is going to deliver the Budget tomorrow, and I make no apology for taking up space describing him since he will be an unknown quantity to the vast majority of those listening to him. That he would occupy a great office of state is not a surprise to anyone who knows him, although that he is Chancellor already was impossible to anticipate. The departure of Sajid Javid was a major loss to the Government, and should not have happened. The one consolation was that an unusually talented replacement was immediately to hand.

Being chancellor is never an easy job. Virtually every Cabinet colleague wants to spend more money, usually including the prime minister. Alone, the chancellor has to defend the taxpayers of today – and, crucially, of tomorrow – while taking the blame for every tax increase. For many, the key test has been their resolve in resisting runaway spending in bad economic times. Roy Jenkins in 1969, Geoffrey Howe in 1981 and George Osborne in 2011 all did this. It’s a pity we can’t say the same of Gordon Brown.

Mr Sunak will face the same challenge frequently in the years to come. But he also has to confront three other immense and unusual problems simultaneously – how to transform the prospects in the long term of neglected parts of Britain; how to prepare for leaving the largest single market in the world; and how to cope in the short term with the global coronavirus crisis that has no precedent in modern history. Together, these circumstances amount to the most complex combination of challenges faced on any modern Budget day in peacetime.

Such circumstances call for an exceptional degree of innovation and creativity. This Chancellor should be well placed to deliver it. He has been the foremost advocate of freeports. Bordering his constituency is the Tees Valley, the fortunes of which will be a key test of whether Conservatives can achieve success for areas once dominated by heavy industry, and he is acutely conscious of that.

The most exciting aspect of the Boris Johnson administration is the emphasis on science and research – witness the new funding for advanced mathematics, more plentiful visas for scientists, and intended doubling of research and development spending. However many people Dominic Cummings offends, this is the vital issue on which he is right. Handled successfully, it will make Britain the main home in the continent of Europe of technological innovation, irrespective of the costs of Brexit.

It would be surprising if the tasks of accomplishing such goals did not feature in the Budget, for it is the decisive platform to give them meaning and credibility. But while looking to a prosperous future, Mr Sunak will have to find ways to get help to those businesses and individuals suddenly hit by a precipitous loss of income as Covid-19 hits the economy. Somehow, ministers have to strike the balance between keeping activity going to avoid economic meltdown, and suspending many of our normal habits so that health services are not overwhelmed.

So preparing this Budget will have been like solving a Rubik’s Cube puzzle. It will be impossible for it to please everyone, and unlikely that it is not followed by further measures as we adapt to fighting the virus. Many people listening will be worried about multiple issues affecting their family incomes or prospects.

If it wasn’t for the election results of December, however, the nation would be finding itself the victim of doctrinaire nationalisation and penal taxation on top of all this. We can be thankful that is not happening. We can be pleased we made this country more creditworthy while we could, in the face of many attacks on “austerity”. And for those who do not yet feel they know the Chancellor, you can be reassured that you will be in the hands of an unusually capable politician.