NIESR’s Response to the Spring Budget - Low-Key Budget Unlikely to Unlock Productivity Growth - 06 March 2024

The systematic running down of the public capital stock can be seen in the healthcare sector, for example, where insufficient infrastructure investment has led to a decrease in the number of usable beds in hospitals and a reduction in the quality or condition of the NHS estate, both of which have likely contributed to treatment backlogs (Warner and Zaranko 2022). [...] (9) NIESR Response to the Spring Budget Spending Changes “Against the backdrop of an economy that has been experiencing flatlining productivity since the 2000s, the Chancellor’s announced public service productivity plans, including the £3.4 billion investment in modernising NHS IT systems, and the commitment to growth in ‘day-to- day' public spending of one per cent in real terms are moves in the. [...] This was the case despite positive effects from the Cost-of-Living payments (up to £900) and the near ten per cent (11) NIESR Response to the Spring Budget increase in the National Living Wage (NLW) and the National Minimum Wage (NMW). [...] Figure 7: The effect of changing the High-Income Child Threshold from 50k to 60k across income distributions Source: NIESR Calculations, LINDA (12) NIESR Response to the Spring Budget Another addition to the list of ISAs that are currently available, the introduction of the British ISA with an annual limit of £5,000 that brings the annual lifetime ISA allowance to £25,000 is welcome, as it encoura. [...] Indeed, the current scale of investment is insufficient to close the gap between the top performing and worst performing areas, which is at the heart of the 12 Levelling Up missions.