The UK government on Wednesday announced that it is setting aside an extra 3 billion pounds over the next two years in preparation for Britain\u2019s exit from the European Union (EU) after last year\u2019s referendum in favour of Brexit, reports news agency PTI.<\/p>\n
In his much-anticipated Budget speech, UK Chancellor Philip Hammond was cheered in the House of Commons as he announced that the government will stand ready to allocate further sums in preparation for \u201cevery possible outcome\u201d in the tough Brexit negotiations with Brussels.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we work to achieve this deep and special partnership [with the EU] we are determined to make sure the country is prepared for every possible outcome,\u201d Hammond said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have already invested almost 700 million pounds in Brexit preparations and today I am setting aside over the next two years another 3 billion pounds and I stand ready to allocate further sums if and when needed. No one should doubt our resolve,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The finance minister designed his Budget as a vision for a \u201cGlobal Britain\u201d after Brexit, which will have a \u201cprosperous and inclusive economy where everybody has the opportunity to shine wherever in the UK they live, whatever their background\u201d.<\/p>\n
And he described this Global Britain as an \u201coutward looking, free-trading nation, a force for good in the world, a country fit for the future\u201d.<\/p>\n
His announcements will help curb some of the brewing rebellion within the ruling Conservative party ranks, where many of Hammond\u2019s colleagues believe his pro-EU views have prevented him from being proactive on financially preparing for Brexit.<\/p>\n
The Budget announcement is also an indication to the EU that the UK is prepared for a worst-case, no-deal scenario ahead of crunch talks at a summit in Brussels next month.<\/p>\n
Britain has been pushing EU leaders to move on to post-Brexit trade discussions, while Europe has been insisting that no such talks can begin until the so-called \u201cdivorce bill\u201d of the money owed by the UK to EU is finalised.<\/p>\n
This week\u2019s Budget statement was seen as a \u201cmake or break\u201d scenario for Hammond\u2019s future as Chancellor in British Prime Minister Theresa May\u2019s Cabinet and many of his Brexit related announcements will see him through a major hurdle. Among some of the other populist measures include abolition of stamp duty for most first-time buyers in the UK.<\/p>\n
The change, effective immediately, will mean those buying properties worth up to 300,000 pounds or up to 500,000 pounds in more expensive areas will save 5,000 pounds.<\/p>\n
With housing singled out by Theresa May as the key crisis facing the country that her government pledged to address, the Chancellor\u2019s statements have been widely welcomed. He also allocated an additional 44 billion pounds investment as part of the government\u2019s drive to deliver 300,000 new homes a year.<\/p>\n
Hammond promised to spend an extra 2.8 billion pounds on the state-funded National Health Service (NHS) up to 2022 and pledged support for electric cars including a 400 million pounds towards charging infrastructure fund.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The UK government on Wednesday announced that it is setting aside an extra 3 billion pounds over the next two years in preparation for Britain\u2019s exit from the European Union (EU) after last year\u2019s referendum in favour of Brexit, reports news agency PTI. In his much-anticipated Budget speech, UK Chancellor Philip Hammond was cheered in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10926,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10927,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10925\/revisions\/10927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}