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Rishi Sunak splurges biggest amount of cash for 65 yrs to ‘get Britain building’ and fix road, rail and broadband
BRITAIN will see the biggest Budget splurge in 65 years as Rishi Sunak today revealed plans to fix Britain's roads, railways and broadband.
The Chancellor will tweak spending and debt rules to give every part of Britain's economy a bumper boost to get it through the coronavirus crisis, and level it up for years to come.
Read the latest Budget updates from our live blog here
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Mr Sunak - who has only been in the top job for a month since Sajid Javid quit - said this afternoon he will invest record amounts in Britain's crumbling infrastructure.
He pledged a £100billion spending spree to help left behind Britain catch up - with giveaways for every part of the country.
Over the next five years he said the public investment would be "the highest it has been since 1955".
He said it would TRIPLE the average amount invested in the economy over the term.
The Budget watchdog said today's splurge was the biggest giveaway in one go since 1992, and would take government borrowing to a six-year high.
It marks a huge departure from the decade of austerity under the Conservatives which saw a tightening of budgets and cuts made across the board.
Accompanying the infrastructure boom, Mr Sunak also set out a package of vote winning changes - including a freeze on ALL booze duties, confirmed a National Insurance tax cut, more help for veterans and a £230m boost to flood defences.
The vast array of nationwide projects will start delivering on the PM’s election promise to level up struggling parts of the country, he told MPs this afternoon.
That includes the "biggest ever investment in strategic roads and motorway" across the boar.
He vowed: "If the country needs it, we will build it."
The infrastructure revolution included:
- 4,000 miles of new road, with more railways and extra stations on the way
- Funding to fix a whopping 50million potholes.
- A £5billion boost for broadband to make sure it can connect Brits across the country
- £15billion will be ploughed into rural broadband networks to give the public better mobile signal.
In a bold rallying cry, he told MPs in the Commons: "This is a Budget that will deliver on our promises to the British people.
"We promised to level up, with new roads, railways, broadband and homes. This Budget gets it done.
"This Budget gets it done. This Government delivers on its promises and gets things done."
Mr Sunak’s spending spree takes the Government’s infrastructure investment total to £600billion between now and 2025.
New rules will ensure money is spent where it has the greatest impact on levelling up, rather than just on where it is the most profitable, such as the South East.
Treasury rules will be reviewed to make sure money can be spent in the right way, the Treasury said last night.
The Government is set to borrow billions more cash to pay for it, the small print of the Budget revealed.
Borrowing will go up from around £47billion a year today to a peak of £66billion by the end of 2022.
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