U.K. Finance Minister Seeks to Placate Angry Young Voters<br />Where once it predicted growth of 2 percent in 2017, with a slowdown to 1.6 percent in 2018 followed by a gradual recovery back to 2 percent growth<br />in 2021, the office now foresees growth of 1.5 percent in 2017, falling slightly over subsequent years and recovering only to 1.6 percent in 2022.<br />On Wednesday, Mr. Hammond announced that the Office for Budget Responsibility had cut its forecasts<br />for economic growth over the next five years, based on lower growth in productivity.<br />In his speech on Wednesday, Mr. Hammond promised £3 billion for Brexit preparations, in addition to £700 million already committed, adding, "No one should<br />doubt our resolve." On the question of housing affordability in Britain, most analysts blame a lack of supply, a view Mr. Hammond appears to accept.<br />Without changes, younger Britons risk becoming less prosperous than their parents’ generation for the first time since the Black Death pandemic<br />that ravaged the region in the Middle Ages, according to the country’s chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, who delivered his annual budget on Wednesday.<br />On Wednesday, Mr. Hammond promised £3.75 billion more for Britain’s National Health Service over<br />the next three years, with the possibility of extra to cover a potential pay raise for nurses.<br />People’s wages and living standards revised down." Prime Minister Theresa May, now governing with the support of a small Northern Ireland party, badly needs a lift after months of infighting over Britain’s planned withdrawal from the European Union, known as Brexit,<br />and the resignation of two cabinet ministers in recent weeks.
