The hopes of a swift recovery for the UK economy after the coronavirus lockdown are “receding fairly quickly”, according to Mel Stride, the Conservative MP who chairs the House of Commons Treasury Committee.
“The idea that we will have this quick V-shaped bounce of a recovery is probably receding fairly quickly now,” he told the World at One.
Stride also hinted that the wealthy might have to pay more taxes to help the economy recover. “There will be very difficult choices, therefore, around spending on the one hand and taxation on the other,” he said.
“I think in the taxation debate there will be a very important debate to be had about who should bear the heaviest levels of additional taxation, especially when you think it is the lowest paid and often the youngest people who have been most impacted… I think there will need to be a debate around which parts of the economy have been impacted the hardest, who is in the best position to be able to shoulder the burden going forward but with a very strong emphasis on getting business back up on its feet and the economy growing again.”
His views contrast with those made by Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who said on 14 April that government policy changes “mean that we can recover quickly and strongly and get our lives and economy back to normal”.
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