Rachel Reeves’ popularity rating as Chancellor has neared Kwasi Kwarteng levels after the mini-Budget, following the Spring Statement on Wednesday.
She set out £14bn in welfare and spending cuts in the House of Commons, including a £4.8bn squeeze on benefits, to restore the £9.9bn headroom she had at the Autumn Budget, which would otherwise have become a £4.1bn deficit, and meet her fiscal rules.
It came as the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) halved its forecast for growth in gross domestic product in 2025 from two to just one per cent, due to a “lack of recent momentum”, and warned Reeves risked losing her £9.9bn again by the autumn.
But in just 48 hours, the Chancellor has had £5bn wiped from her headroom, according to a calculation by Bloomberg Economics, thanks to government borrowing costs rising to their highest levels since mid-January.
And polling by Ipsos of more than 1,000 adults revealed just one in five (19 per cent) Brits say Reeves is doing a good job as Chancellor – and 51 per cent say she is doing a bad job.
It means her public approval levels as Chancellor are approaching the same level as Kwarteng after he and Liz Truss’ disastrous ‘mini-budget’ of 2022, with criticism increasing by seven percentage points from mid-March, when people were surveyed on March 26-27.
Reeves polling
Pollsters at Ipsos also revealed half (50 per cent) of Brits are more worried about their own finances following Wednesday’s announcement, and 57 per cent are more concerned than reassured about Britain’s economy. While 55 per cent are worried about public services.
The public expressed support of 51 to 52 per cent for building more affordable housing, funding for training more construction workers, and increasing defence spending, Ipsos said.
But voters were split on whether they backed reducing overall welfare spending, with 36 per cent in favour and 35 per cent opposed. The government’s own impact assessment for the proposed welfare changes revealed they would push 250,000 more people into poverty.
In comparison to Reeves, Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak both only reached 44 per cent of people thinking they were doing a bad job, versus the current Chancellor’s 51 per cent.
And her net approval rating of -32 is approaching Kwarteng’s post-mini-budget slump of -37.
Gideon Skinner, senior director of UK Politics at Ipsos, said: “No Chancellor of the Exchequer wants their job approval to be compared to Kwasi Kwarteng’s time in No11, but Rachel Reeves current scores are nearing his post mini-budget levels.”
He warned of “ongoing public pessimism”, and added: “Half are critical of her performance, and the immediate reaction to the Spring Statement has done little to reassure the British public about the state of the economy, public services, or their own personal finances. ”