Phillip Hammond BLASTS George Osborne’s record as Chancellor and the high levels of inequality in the UK

NEW Chancellor Philip Hammond has launched a blistering assault on George Osborne’s record, warning of “almost grotesque” economic inequality across Britain.

Mr Hammond told the Commons that there are “huge—one might say almost grotesque—disparities between economic performance in the different regions and nations of the UK.

It was seen as a direct attack on his predecessor’s Northern Powerhouse project, that attempted to rebalance the UK’s growth.

Mr Hammond also used his first Treasury Questions session to warn “the UK continues to run a very large fiscal deficit by international standards and we will have to address that deficit.”

He added: “We need to remind ourselves that we are running a 6.9% of GDP external account deficit, and that has to be funded somehow."

Despite the criticism Mr Hammond said he does not believe in “the money tree” so had no plans to reverse George Osborne’s spending commitments.

But the slap down came less than a day after the former Chancellor launched a passionate defence of his six years in the Treasury.

In a speech to the CPS think tank on Monday evening, Mr Osborne boasted that “when we inherited a budget deficit of 11 per cent of national income” and claimed to have reduced it.

But Mr Hammond was keen to hammer home the point that the deficit is still dangerously high.

He repeatedly warned: “We have a very large fiscal deficit that we have to address, but while doing that we also have to ensure we maximise the productive capability of the UK economy.”