Hunt announces a “landmark public sector productivity plan” will be published today, including cutting form filling by doctors using AI, digitising hospital processes and improving the NHS app. He adds: “We need a more productive state, not a bigger state.”

Odin help us we’re doomed.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

He acknowledges that interest rates “remain high as we bring down inflation”, but adds: “We can now help families not just with cost of living support but with permanent cuts in taxation.” He calls it a “budget for long term growth”.

PW: Another relatively minor tax change which taps into what appears to be genuine public sentiment – in this case, worries about how the rapid growth of the Airbnb economy risks hollowing out some holiday-dominated communities.

PW: The seemingly serious wobbles faced by the government’s 30-hour free childcare offer for younger children has unsettled quite a few Tory MPs, who fear it will cause chaos if it doesn’t work.

PW: In talking about public services, Hunt faces the problem experienced by Rishi Sunak at every prime minister’s questions – he has to argue they are performing well, when more or less every voter in the UK disagrees.

PW: It is notable that Hunt announces both a tax break for smaller businesses, and efforts to address what he calls “historic underinvestment” – a concession that many voters believe the UK’s infrastructure is somewhat crumbling.

PW: For all that successive fiscal statements have been billed as a “budget for growth”, even these forecasts are fairly anaemic, and unlikely to instil new hope in Tory MPs facing electoral defeat.

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