00:00Well, Nina Skirrow is chief executive of the Center for Economics and Business Research.
00:04Great to have you back on the programme.
00:07So look, as we keep hearing, the Chancellor was promising breathing space.
00:11Have the markets given him any?
00:15Well, as you mentioned on the programme, it was not an overly ambitious budget.
00:20So I think the Chancellor was seeking to sort of walk the line between giving some limited handouts,
00:27but also not having another big tax rising budget similar to the ones we've had in the previous two years.
00:35And it seems that the markets are saying that they're relieved, probably not so much because of what he has
00:43done,
00:44but because of what he hasn't done, which is he hasn't again tried to raise taxes
00:49and he hasn't made any very significant new spending commitments,
00:55which is probably the main thing that would have spooked markets.
00:58If we take a step back a little bit and look at France, they're struggling with their own debts.
01:03Governments across Europe are under pressure to spend more on things like defence.
01:08What does a cautious Britain mean for the rest of Europe?
01:14Well, yeah, I'm afraid that sort of the fact that others are having similar problems
01:19probably won't make things any easier for the UK.
01:23I think the UK can seek to sort of forge its own path
01:27and try to emphasise the strengths that it has within Europe.
01:31An important area that was mentioned a little bit, but not covered extensively in the budget,
01:35is AI, the benefits of which so far are mostly being felt in the United States.
01:40But I think within Europe, UK can still emerge as somewhat of a leader in that space.
01:47But it is a difficult situation for Europe as a whole, UK included.
01:52Yeah, he did say in the budget that the UK is a data centre hub for Europe
01:59and talked about the opportunities but also the risks.
02:02But I'm thinking about your World Economic League table,
02:05which ranks economies around the world.
02:07Does this budget help Britain hold its place or are there lots of other things to weigh up?
02:13There's lots of other things to weigh up.
02:15Something that was missing from today's budget is the answer to the questions
02:22in terms of how is the government going to address its largest challenges?
02:26And those are the kind of things we look in our World Economic League table.
02:30How is the government going to address questions such as its unsustainably high welfare bill?
02:36How is it going to finance its new defence expenditure ambitions?
02:42How is it going to attract businesses and attract back or, in fact, new high-potential, high-earning individuals?
02:51So those kind of big questions weren't really touched upon today.
02:56They were very much kicked down the road.
02:58And it's more those kind of big questions that would impact the country's prospects in the medium and long term.
03:05Nina Skira, I've got so much more to ask you about the UK economy.
03:08We're going to have to leave it there.
03:09It does seem like there are more questions posed by this budget than answers.
03:13Nina Skira, thank you very much.
