Jeremy Hunt sets out Tory plans for the economy in speech – UK politics live

Key events

Hunt: ‘We need lower taxes’

Hunt says the government’s plan for growth is “necessitated, energised and made possible” by Brexit, and that the UK needs to “make Brexit a catalyst for bold choices”.

Brexit allows us to “take advantage of the nimbleness and flexibility it makes possible”, he says.

Hunt says there are the “four Es of economic growth and prosperity”: enterprise, education, employment and everywhere.

In order to speak the creation of more new businesses, “firstly we need lower taxes”, he says.

High taxes directly affect the incentives which determine decisions by entrepreneurs, investors or larger companies, about whether to pursue their ambitions in Britain

He says:

Sound money must come first but our ambition must be nothing less than to have the most competitive tax regime of any major country.

That means “restraint on tax spending”, he says. He adds:

In case anyone is in any doubt about who will actually deliver that restraint to make a low tax economy possible, I gently point out that in the three weeks since Labour promised no big government chequebook they have made £45bn of unfunded spending commitments.

Hunt wants to 'turn the UK to the next Silicon Valley’

Hunt says the UK is “powerfully positioned” to play a leading role in the innovation industries “that will shape and define this century”.

He says the government is determined to achieve his aspirations to help Britain become a “technology superpower”.

He says:

I want the world’s tech entrepreneurs, life science innovators and green tech companies to come to the UK because it offers the best possible place to make their visions happen.

The UK government will “back you to the hilt”, he says.

Talk of UK's decline wrong in the past and wrong today - Hunt

Hunt says he wants the UK to be one of the most prosperous countries in Europe and outlines four pillars of the government’s plan to get there.

In order to achieve that plan for prosperity in growth, he says we will need “optimism, which is in rather short supply”.

He says columnists from both the left and right have been talking about Britain going through an “existential crisis” and “teetering on the edge and all we can hope for is that things don’t get worse”. He says:

I welcome the debate. But Chancellors too are allowed their say. And I say simply this declinism about Britain is just wrong. It’s always been wrong in the past and it’s wrong today.

Hunt: The best tax cut right now is a cut to inflation

Hunt says risk-taking by individuals and businesses can only happen when governments provide economic and financial stability. He says:

The best tax cut right now is a cut in inflation.

He says the plan that he set out in the Autumn statement “tackles that root cause of instability in the British economy”.

Rishi Sunak talked about having inflation as one of his five key priorities, but Hunt says he wants to talk about the PM’s second priority - to grow the economy.

Jeremy Hunt has started speaking. He begins by saying that digital technology has “transformed nearly every aspect of our economic lives”.

The UK has been dealing with “economic headwinds caused by a decade of black swan events”, Hunt says – a financial crisis, an international energy crisis.

He says the Conservative party “understands better than others the importance of low taxes in creating incentives and fostering the animal spirits that spur economic growth”.

The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, was scheduled to speak at 9.20am, but his address from Bloomberg’s European headquarters in London has been slightly delayed.

We will be following it live when he does speak.

The number of EU students enrolling in British universities has more than halved since Brexit – with sharp declines in scholars from Italy, Germany and France, figures reveal.

Brexit is seen as the primary deterrent, with home fees and student finance no longer available to EU students who do not already live in the UK with settled or pre-settled status.

“The significant decrease shown in EU first-year student enrolments can be attributed to changes in fees eligibility,” said the Higher Education Statistics Agency, which has published the data for the first full post-Brexit year.

Before Brexit, students paid home fees of just over £9,000 and had student finance available. Fees have risen as high as £38,000 after Brexit.

The number of students from the EU who enrolled for the first year of an undergraduate or postgraduate course was down from 66,680 the year before Brexit came into force, 2020, to 31,000 in 2021. This was the first year EU students were treated the same as those coming from China or India.

But the impact of Brexit is deepest at undergraduate level, with just 13,155 EU students enrolling in 2021 for the first year of a primary degree compared with 37,530 the year before, according to official data.

Read the full story here:

What should we expect from Hunt's speech?

Jeremy Hunt will defend the government’s vision for Britain’s economic future in his speech, as he lays out plans for investment and growth.

The chancellor will say he wants to promote policies that allow the private sector to retool the UK’s industrial base and reskill the workforce to generate strong growth over the next decade.

A low-tax base will be an essential element of the UK’s attraction for foreign and domestic businesses, he will say.

He is also expected to condemn British “declinism”, which he will claim is being “peddled” by the Labour party, according to the Daily Mail. Hunt will insist negative forecasts from experts “do not reflect the whole picture”, it reports.

The chancellor will also make “the case for optimism”, blaming EU red tape for stifling British investment. The UK formally left the EU three years ago.

Chancellor to set out economic plans in speech

Good morning.

The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is due to set out the government’s vision for the future of the UK economy this morning in a speech to City executives in London.

Hunt is expected deliver an upbeat message, saying: “Declinism about Britain was wrong in the past and it is wrong today.”

But despite the optimistic tone, the chancellor is also expected to continue to resist calls from some Tory MPs for tax cuts to kickstart flagging economic growth.

Instead he will say the UK should exploit the opportunities provided by the UK’s withdrawal from the EU to raise productivity while using the proceeds of growth to support public services.

His address comes after a cabinet awayday at Chequers on Thursday, where the chancellor said ministers must maintain their “disciplined approach” if they were to get inflation under control.

The speech is due to start at 9.20am GMT and you can watch and follow it here.

Meanwhile, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, and the deputy leader, Angela Rayner, are due to meet frontline health workers as the row over NHS jobs and pay continues.

We’ll bring you updates from that, and any other political developments, throughout the day.