Gove angers cost of living campaigners by ruling out emergency budget
Michael Gove has been accused of minimising the cost of living crisis after he ruled out an emergency budget and admitted the government would fail to meet its target of building 300,000 homes a year.
The UK levelling up secretary said it would be “patronising” for him to intervene to advise people who were struggling to make ends meet and blamed the current squeeze on global inflation.
The Queen’s speech on Tuesday contained no significant measures to help people with the soaring cost of living, but Boris Johnson had promised there would be news of extra assistance in the coming days.
However, Gove told Sky News: “There won’t be an emergency budget. It is sometimes the case that the words from a prime minister or minister are over-interpreted. The prime minister is right. We will be saying more and doing more in order to help people with the cost of living challenge we face at the moment, but that doesn’t amount to an emergency budget. It is part of the work of government.
“Last night, the prime minister convened a group of ministers – we have all done work on some of the things we could do to help. Those policy initiatives will be announced by individual departments in due course as they are worked up.”
When asked about speculation of a split between Johnson and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, who is resisting an emergency budget, Gove deployed different accents as he told BBC Breakfast: “It is an example of some commentators chasing their own tails and trying to take a statement that is common-sensical, turning it into a ‘major’ capital letters ‘big news story’.
“When the Treasury quite rightly say ‘calm down’, people instead of recognising that they have overinflated the story in the first place then say: ‘Oh, this is clearly
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