BBC's Laura Kuenssberg predicts 'whopper budget' as UK battles with spreading coronavirus
BBC News political editor Laura Kuenssberg warned coronavirus will have a huge effect on the amount of spending the Government will announce next week when Chancellor Rishi Sunak will unveil the 2020 budget.
Laura Kuenssberg predicts a 'whopper' UK budget
Speaking on BBC Newscast, Laura Kuenssberg said she expects the budget presented by Chancellor Rishi Sunak next week to be a "whopper" as the Government deals with the potentially disruptive effect of coronavirus on the economy. The BBC editor warned: “I think the budget is going to be an absolute whopper when it comes to spending.
“Because the Government is also willing to borrow lots and lots of money in order to spend on capital, so remember there’s different bits of spending.
“There’s revenue, which is day to day expenses, and then there’s capital spending.
“Coronavirus will be reflected in the budget and I think it will obviously reflect the tone.
“But remember two things, one the data that the Government is using to do its sums around this hasn’t come through yet in terms of coronavirus.
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“And second of all, I don’t think that even if this will have an effect on the economy but the Government’s belief and the Bank of England’s belief is that it may be very significant but it would be temporary.
“So they’re not expecting this is going to be a massive financial meltdown where literally the bottom falls out of the economy.
“It might be very disruptive but not necessarily awful. But they don’t know.
“Nobody can know the extent to which this is going to be disruptive and may be disruptive of everybody’s life.”
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Rishi Sunak will announce his first Budget as Chancellor on Wednesday - less than a month after replacing Sajid Javid in the top Government role.
UK stocks fell again on Friday as growing economic risks from the coronavirus outbreak shattered investor confidence, with Britain recording its first death from the pathogen.
A 1.5 percentage fall for the FTSE 100 erased the blue-chip index's gains from earlier this week.
Export-heavy companies have now lost over £196 billion in value since the epidemic sparked a worldwide rout last week.
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The domestically focussed mid-cap index was down 1.9 percent.
Cruise operator Carnival dropped 4.2 percent to its lowest level since 2012, a day after its Grand Princess ocean liner was barred from returning to its homeport of San Francisco on virus fears.
Britain said an older person with underlying health problems had succumbed to the flu-like virus on Thursday, while the number of infections jumped to 115.
In company news, drugmaker AstraZeneca fell 1 percent after it said its treatment for a form of bladder cancer failed to meet the main goal of improving overall survival in patients in a late-stage study.