Jeremy Hunt’s Budget plan to cut National Insurance by 2p amounts to “fiddling while Rome burns”, Lord Frost has warned.
The former Brexit minister said the Chancellor needed to use today’s address in the House of Commons to set out a strategy to address the UK’s problems of which he said there are “lots and lots”.
The Tory peer also said Mr Hunt should spell out that the UK has “no future” as a “high-tax, high-spend social democrat economy”.
He told Sky News: “What I want to see is a Budget that deals with the problems the country has got and it does have lots and lots of problems, there is no doubt about that.
“But what I’d like to hear is the Chancellor setting out a strategy, telling us that there is no future for this country as a high-tax, high-spend social democrat economy, coming up with a strategy that is going to focus on growth.
“The economy is not growing. Incomes per head are actually falling and people can feel it. We need something that deals with that and I’m afraid welcome as a 2p cut in National Insurance would be, it is really just sort of fiddling while Rome burns, I’m afraid.”
You can follow the latest updates below and join the conversation in the comments section here.