Jeremy Hunt may end up being one of the great chancellors. This isn’t because he has either a grand vision to reshape the country or an ideologically driven programme of economic reform, but because he has been slowly fixing the mistakes of his Conservative predecessors.
Appointed in a panic by Liz Truss in an attempt to reassure the markets after Kwasi Kwarteng’s disastrous mini-budget, Hunt has been clearing up the mess created by his own party from the moment he arrived at the Treasury.
Within days of becoming chancellor, he had scrapped £32bn of tax cuts that had been announced by Truss and Kwarteng in their financial statement that stunned the markets and sent the economy into meltdown. He confirmed a dramatic change of course by admitting questions had been raised about whether the country could fund spending promises and pay its debts.
To the fury of Tory right-wingers, he reverted to Treasury orthodoxy and praised the Office for Budget Responsibility. Instead of championing tax cuts he declared that there would be “decisions of eye-watering difficulty” and “every single one of those decisions—whether reductions in spending or increases in tax—will be shaped through core, compassionate Conservative values that will prioritise the needs of the most vulnerable.” The crisis was averted, and the markets began to stabilise.
Next, in his budget in March, Hunt announced a massive injection of cash into childcare, an issue that had been neglected and under-funded for years by successive Tory chancellors. Although Rishi Sunak had talked about early years education, he had done little to reverse the closure of hundreds of Sure Start centres or to improve a childcare system that is one of the most expensive in the world.
Hunt’s plan was not perfect. He pledged a £4 billion “childcare revolution”, with 30 hours of free childcare for working parents with children from nine months up, as part of a “back to work” package of measures. The scheme will not be rolled out in full until 2025 and there was too little on expanding nursery and childminder places. Most importantly, the focus on working parents means that many of the most disadvantaged families will lose out. Nonetheless, the offer was undoubtedly a significant statement of priorities.
Now the chancellor has approved £2.4bn to fund a workforce NHS plan that will involve a doubling of medical school places, a 50 per cent increase in GP trainee places for junior doctors and 24,000 more nurse and midwife places a year. There will also be a rise in apprenticeships and a consultation on accelerated medical degrees. As chair of the Commons Health and Social Care Select Committee, Hunt repeatedly called for a fully funded work force plan for the NHS—and now he has delivered it. I am told he negotiated some of the details directly with Amanda Pritchard the head of the NHS, seeing off Treasury civil servants who were reluctant to give the money for an investment that may not be repaid for many years. The strategy should have been implemented a decade ago, but it was Hunt who delivered, unlike his predecessors.
Of course, there are many reasons to criticise Hunt. The economy is still in deep trouble, inflation is not under control, mortgage rates are rising and the cost of living continues to bite. He must share the blame.
But the chancellor is also a pragmatist who is happy to face down the ideologues in his party in the national interest. That is precisely why he has failed to win the Tory leadership in contests dominated by an increasingly right-wing set, despite pandering to the base in 2022 with the promise of a cut in corporation tax. If the polls are to be believed, the Conservatives will be in a monumental political mess after the next general election. Hunt might well be the best person to clear it up—which is precisely why the Tories won’t turn to him.
