Back to the future as Rachel Reeves fires up summer spending reminiscent of Rishi Sunak’s COVID scheme | Money News

Rachel Reeves’ Great British Summer Savings, a family-friendly bundle of VAT cuts for kids’ meals and leisure attractions, and free bus travel to get to there, is reminiscent of a previous Treasury wheeze intended to lift spirits in a troubled summer – think Eat Out To Help Out, without social distancing or gnawing anxiety.

Like Rishi Sunak’s state-funded discounts deployed in the first summer of the COVID pandemic, these measures are aimed squarely at families thinking twice about going out, and a hospitality industry desperate to receive them.

This time, the reluctance is caused by a cost-of-living squeeze rather than a deadly virus, but the principle is the same.

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Chancellor tells Sky News she will deliver Autumn budget

Use a little taxpayer money to ease the financial burden and perhaps lubricate local economies while you are at it.

The Chancellor denies it is a gimmick at a hugely fraught political moment for her and Sir Keir Starmer, telling Sky News she supported the prime minister continuing in office, but appeared to stop short of giving unequivocal backing to him.

She also insisted she will deliver the next Budget and reeled off the recent positive economic data – rising GDP, falling inflation – to support her case, a message that will not have been missed by Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting.

Febrile politics aside, her desire to help families is doubtless sincerely meant, but GBSS, as no one will be calling it, comes with a hefty price tag – around £700m once you add in the easing of tariffs on more than 100 food imports.

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Chancellor hits back at heckler

The branding for the scheme, channelling a 1950’s seaside aesthetic, proudly proclaims it as “funded by the UK government”, but the total bill to taxpayers does not stop there.

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Wrap in a £600m freeze to fuel duty and a holiday for road taxes on HGVs, £500m in long-awaited support for the chemicals and ceramics sectors – both industries long hobbled by facing the highest energy costs in Europe – and the total commitment runs to £1.6bn over six years.

The Treasury says this will require no new borrowing. Instead, it will be covered by closing a tax loophole allowing UK-based multinationals to write off corporation tax on losses made overseas, a move that squarely targets the oil and gas industry.

Add this new tax-raising measure to the spending package and this was a “happy meal” fiscal event – a cheerful, cheap-ish moment of Treasury largesse before the realities of the Iran war energy shock bite in the autumn.