Chancellor Rishi Sunak said he wants to “level with people” about the problems facing the economy because of the coronavirus crisis.
Warning that Covid-19 has had an “enormous hold on our economy”, he told Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday: “I want to level with people about that, about the problem that causes and the challenges it presents us with and be honest about our plan to address those.
“We do have a challenge in our public finances and if we don’t do anything borrowing will continue to be at very high levels even after we’ve recovered from Covid, debt will continue to rise indefinitely and that’s not a good situation.”
On the long-term consequences of more online shopping during the pandemic, Mr Sunak told said: “That’s why we’ve put in place this grant scheme, the restart grants because businesses that have been forced to close multiple times over the past year actually employ millions of people and what I care about is protecting as many jobs as possible by supporting those businesses to protect those jobs, that’s what this grant will do.”
He added: “The digital services tax which I announced at last year’s Budget is a tax on online marketplaces. We’re working with our international colleagues actually this year and I’m doing that through the G7 and the G20 of group of finance ministers to find an international agreement on taxing digital companies.”
