Britons told to brace for a decade of pain as household income will be worst on record, IFS warns

Britons have been told to brace for a decade of pain with household income plummeting to the worst levels on record, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has warned.

Slamming John Healey's first Budget as “unhelpful fiddling”, the economic think tank cautioned his unveiled measures do not go far enough to take Britain off a grim fiscal path.

In the aftermath of the announcement on Wednesday, the IFS said the average British family's disposable income would increase by an average of just two per cent over the course of the 2020s - the worst level of recorded growth in more than seven decades.

The bleak forecast would mean the country would fail to see growth surpass that of the 1950s - a decade where Britain was still living under brutal post-war rationing measures.

IFS director Helen Miller said: “This decade looks set to be the worst decade for growth in household incomes on record.

"No amount of temporary cost of living packages will fix that. We need a stronger economy.”

Ahead of his speech, Mr Healey insisted his budget would deliver "breathing space" for households and businesses across the country.

Speaking yesterday, the Chancellor said his announcement of £100 off energy bills for about 20 million households in England was an "important payment".

He added: "Now, you can't remove all the rises, you can't remove all the pressures that people are facing.

"But my aim is to say, look where we can, we'll act, we'll give people a bit of breathing space and [we're] doing that with this household energy payment."

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Andy Burnham vows to cut Britain's ballooning benefits bill 'as soon as we possibly can'

Andy Burnham has declared he wants to slash Britain's ballooning benefits "as soon as we possibly can" amid forecasts welfare spending could hit £431billion in 2031/32.

However, the Prime Minister was unable to commit to making sweeping cuts before the next general election.

He told reporters yesterday: "We want to get the welfare bill down as quickly as possible, and we're working flat out to that end."

Mr Burnham warned against making "crude cuts" and insisted he wants to get more people into "sustainable employment" before making any radical changes.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, accused Labour of being "addicted to welfare".

Labour MP warns Andy Burnham 'not to rip whole country apart' in Brexit war 

Andy Burnham has been warned by a senior Labour backbencher "not to rip apart the whole country again" by trying to reverse a key element of the Brexit deal.

Labour MP Melanie Onn, MP for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, also said that it was a "big trust issue" for the PM to go back on the Brexit commitment not to sign up to EU freedom of movement in the party's 2024 general election.

Ms Onn - an elected member of the party's ruling National Executive Committee - was the first Labour backbencher to break cover this week to express concern about the party advocating ripping up part of the UK's Brexit deal with Brussels.

Mr Burnham raised the prospect of the UK signing up again to EU freedom of movement in a weekend newspaper interview as part of a deal to get closed to the trading bloc.

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