Is Boris about to abandon his own debt rules?

It’s always tempting for governments to respond to economic trouble with a debt-fuelled spending splurge, but it’s a notoriously blunt tool. The root of the current problem is not financial panic but a rational response to the coronavirus. People are travelling less, staying away from shops and the workplace, delaying various projects, and they will keep doing so while the uncertainty remains. This disruption is painful but temporary. It is not symptomatic of financial malaise. It would be a mistake for the Conservatives to use this as a pretext to abandon their five-year plan to control the public finances.

The £30 billion stimulus to address jitters over coronavirus was quite a figure, especially as the extent of the economic impact of Covid-19 is far from clear. The size of the sum (and Bank of England response) suggests that the Treasury thinks Britain might be in far more economic trouble than the figures suggest – and that this government is very willing to spend its way out of tight spots. This was not an average Budget. Add everything up and it was the biggest giveaway since Norman Lamont’s pre-election Budget of 1992.

Look at the spending pledges: £200 million for life sciences, £300 million for clean air, £900 million for nuclear fusion, space and electric cars, £1 billion for green energy, £5 billion of government loans for businesses, £110 billion for capital budgets (a sum that has now trebled), £600 billion for infrastructure over five years. It’s the kind of spending list that would make Jeremy Corbyn blanch.

The tax cuts — in National Insurance and business tax relief — were in line with what Boris Johnson promised when he stood for election a few months ago. But he also promised fiscal responsibility, and we heard a lot less about that in this Budget.