00:01New UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has used his first days in Downing Street to make the cost of living
00:08the priority of his political agenda.
00:11First, the British government said it would remove the 5% VAT from household electricity bills from October until the
00:19end of the financial year next April, expected to knock an average of 53 euros off yearly household bills.
00:28The cut is to be paid by scrapping the digital ID program, prompting questions over whether that money had ever
00:35been set aside.
00:36Second, single bus fares in England, outside London, currently capped at £3 until the end of March 2027, will instead
00:45be capped at £2 or 2.34 euros from January 1st through to the end of next year, cutting the
00:53maximum fare by a third and heading off a spring price jump.
00:57The 533 million euros cost was found in the Energy Department's budget by switching cash earmarked for international climate finance
01:06projects into loans.
01:08The constraint on all of these policies is fiscal. Public debt is above 95% of GDP, with interest costs
01:16of €130 billion last year, or 8.3% of government spending, according to the UK Budget Watchtok.
01:27The
Comments