Andrew Griffith: Burnham ‘making up stories’ about my role in Truss Budget
Andrew Griffith has accused Andy Burnham of “making up stories” about his involvement in the disastrous Liz Truss mini-Budget as the new Conservative shadow Chancellor fends off a barrage of attack lines from the Prime Minister following his appointment by Kemi Badenoch on Monday.
Addressing the House of Commons on Tuesday and again at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Burnham repeatedly drew attention to Griffith’s role as a Treasury minister during the short-lived Liz Truss administration in 2022, in which a surge in gilt yields following the mini-Budget triggered her abrupt exit from Downing Street.
“What other thing can I say in response to that but God help us,” Burnham said.
But Griffith has hit back, suggesting that Burnham’s characterisation of his influence over the mini-Budget was “simply not the case,” and drawing attention to rocketing government bond yields, which are now higher than under Truss.
“I was a newly appointed junior minister responsible for financial services regulation – I wasn’t sighted on the budget until it had already gone to print the night before,” Griffith said in an interview with Morning Wire.
“Andy Burnham would love to talk about anything other than the fact that, in his few short days in office, he’s already writing cheques that the government and bond market feel can’t be properly cashed.
“I’m sure he’d like to talk about many other things, including making up stories about [my] influence in a budget, which is simply not the case.
“Clearly mistakes were made, but we need to look forward, not backward.”
Griffith says Burnham is sapping business confidence
Government bond yields jumped to their highest levels in decades earlier this week amid investor unease over government spending plans and an uplift in inflation expectations.
The 10-year gilt yield climbed as much as 11 basis points to 5.25 per cent, while 30-year yields hit 5.89 per cent, their highest since May 1998, echoing similar moves in the US bond market a day earlier.
Griffith accused the government of creating “a multi-billion black hole in its finances due to the premium on UK gilts—more than France, Germany, the US, and double the increase Greece has seen over the same period.
He told Morning Wire: “This is a function of government uncertainty…the government has caused uncertainty by setting out spending plans it hasn’t committed to fund, and by not ruling out tax rises, putting a blanket on confidence across the economy when businesses already suffer from low confidence, low demand, and chilled hiring intentions.”
Griffith urged the government to rule out further tax rises and make progress on welfare reform “that their backbenchers won’t let them do”.