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Rishi Sunak ‘will have to drop Santa act to get back cash’

Rishi Sunak will have to stop being a popular “Santa Claus chancellor” in two years and become an unpopular money-raiser instead, a respected economic watchdog today said.

Institute of Fiscal Studies director Paul Johnson warned it would be hard to reverse some of the extra spending being unleashed today to fight the coronavirus emergency, and some of the billions could turn out to be permanent increases in State spending.

“He is going to be worrying about the cost of all this, but he is not going to be worrying about it this year and possibly not next year,” Mr Johnson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“But in two or three years’ time — partly because the economy will be smaller than we expected and tax revenues will be lower and partly because … significant chunks of this extra spending will be permanent… he is going to have to come back and pay for this.”

He added: “The Santa Claus chancellor is going to turn into the reverse of that and become less popular.”

Mr Sunak has been enjoying the highest ratings of all the Cabinet as he dished out borrowed money to save people from the dole.

However, some forecasts suggest this year’s deficit will be £300 billion as the costs of his interventions mount.

The political pitfalls of trying to reverse popular hand-outs were underlined by a massive row today over signals that the Government is pulling the plug on free parking for nurses on shift at hospitals. Health minister Edward Argar said in a written answer that funding from councils “cannot continue indefinitely”.

Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth said: “Yesterday the Tories tried to blame care homes, today they take away free car parking for NHS staff.”

A Department of Health spokesman said: “When the pandemic begins to ease, the NHS will continue to provide free hospital car parking to key patient groups and NHS staff.”

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