Healey: UK Economy 'Turning a Corner' Before Budget — SkimNews
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- John Healey will tell a Monday audience the UK economy is 'turning a corner' — resilient, optimistic and 'ready to seize the opportunities of new technologies and ideas' — ahead of his first Budget on 28 October.
- Healey will unveil a £150m fund for northern England firms, drawn from already-allocated British Business Bank money, offering £5m–£15m investments to university spin-outs and 'fast-growing' businesses.
- UK borrowing costs hit a new 18-year high, forcing the Treasury to fill possible multi-billion pound gaps worsened by rising gilt rates and the need to fund higher defence spending.
- Healey is also contending with inflationary impacts of the Iran war, with shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith noting Healey 'resigned over defence spending' yet the speech reportedly mentions neither the armed forces nor the 3% GDP defence pledge.
- Helen Miller of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said 'economic growth in every postcode sounds great' but would be 'much harder to achieve in practice,' harder even than building stronger second and third cities.
- Opposition reactions were uniformly harsh: Daisy Cooper (Lib Dems) said re-announcing £150m across the entire north would 'barely shift the dial,' while Reform UK's Robert Jenrick called Healey 'an empty vessel with no idea about how to rescue our economy.'
Why it matters: Downing Street is deliberately leaning into upbeat messaging to coax cautious consumers and businesses into spending and investing before the 28 October Budget delivers the tough fiscal medicine — but UK borrowing costs just hit an 18-year high, and the £150m northern fund was dismissed as insufficient by the IFS, Lib Dems and Reform UK within hours of its announcement.
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