Chancellor John Healey backs growth but says Labour must ‘be honest’ on spending

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He promised to “draw a line” under rising costs for businesses and end legal blockages to building infrastructure, while declining to rule out tax rises in next month’s Budget.

Speaking in Coventry, he said: “I dedicate myself to this mission as Chancellor to make Great Britain Growth Britain again with more investment, more innovation, and more jobs.

“Let me be clear: I recognise that the cost of business – that’s energy bills, regulation burdens, planning constraints, labour costs – have grown since Covid, and I want to draw the line.

“Whether it is the cost of business or the cost of living, the only way we deal with these in the long term is growth.”

Mr Healey said that he and Mr Burnham are in “lockstep in our commitment to meeting the fiscal rules” and he will set out a “roadmap to fiscal devolution” at the next Budget.

Giving an overview of his plans for the economy, he said that the government would extend its reforms of judicial review from energy projects to all major infrastructure programmes — including transport and water.

He added the government should grasp the opportunities presented by artificial intelligence, but said he would not “allow the technology to proliferate with no oversight.”

His speech came as Jaguar Land Rover confirmed 4,000 job cuts ahead of a meeting between Unite general secretary Sharon Graham, Business Secretary Johnny Reynolds and JLR’s chief executive PB Balaji on Tuesday.

The union said it understands that the company is looking predominantly at cuts to salaried grades and that plans are not expected to affect production workers and the supply chain.

It is asking for urgent clarification of the extent and focus of its plans for non-production workers and demanding that JLR and the government ensure all possible options are fully explored and utilised to mitigate job losses.

Communist Party general secretary Alex Gordon, meanwhile, warned Mr Healey’s recipe for growth “lacks conviction.”

“He claimed his plan is based on ‘supply side economics, not sentimentality,’ a euphemism for deregulation and an increasingly exploitative employment market,” he told the Morning Star.

“This government has not made good on Labour’s general election pledge to bring about the ��biggest wave of insourcing in a generation” and already Chancellor Healey is pinning his hopes for economic growth on reducing business regulation by 25 per cent by the end of the current parliament.

‘He will have to explain to his boss Andy Burnham how this bonfire of regulations fits with Burnham’s desire for a closer relationship with the EU.”

He described the Chancellor’s hopes for attracting private investment as a “chimaera” that can’t reshape the country’s “low-investment, low-wage economy.”

“We need public ownership and public investment in the renewal and reintegration of critical national infrastructures, including energy generation and distribution, housing, transport and digital communications to support a real economic recovery with the skilled, well-paid jobs that young workers need,” Mr Gordon said.

Britain’s largest union backed calls for public service investment.

Unison assistant general secretary Jon Richards said: “Investment in public services is the best route to growth if we want to reach every part of the UK.

“A decade and a half of driving down spending is exactly what got us into this economic mess in the first place.”

A spokesman for Momentum said: “If the Chancellor is serious about staying true to Labour’s values, he must end austerity, invest in our public services and deliver the real change communities voted for.”

Green Party Treasury spokesperson Dr Ellie Chowns MP said: “Once again Britain is promised a new economic vision for the future — and once again we are delivered more of the same, from another government unwilling to truly grasp the nettle on wealth inequality and deliver for our communities.

“A government serious about fixing our economy cannot afford to look the other way while the uber-rich accumulate ever-more wealth and dodge paying their fair share. Only the Greens can deliver the genuine transformational change Britain needs.”

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