Autumn Statement: Government cannot be trusted to support business and economy while championing Brexit

The Autumn Statement brought home for the first time the scale of the economic problem we face as a country post-Brexit. The figures revealed a £220 billion Brexit black hole – hundreds of billions taken out of our economy when we need it most.

Tax receipts too will fall substantially in the next two years – with a drop of £8.2bn expected. To put that in context that is the salaries of 330,000 nurses, imagine (to pinch an idea off the Vote Leave bus) the impact if that money was spent on the NHS instead.

According to the OBR's analysis the impact doesn't just stop at public finances. Their figures forecast a rise in unemployment and a fall in living standards, at the same time as higher inflation means the cost of living will increase well above what ordinary people can afford.

Given all this you would have expected substantial action from the Chancellor to boost growth, but instead his reforms have been decidedly weak. After months of talking of significant new infrastructure spending, the sums for road and broadband actually announced are drops in the ocean compared to what's needed.

Despite OBR figures suggesting leaving the EU will mean lower trend productivity growth, the additional £2bn announced for R&D doesn't come fulling into force until 2020, long after we may lose vital EU investment through Horizon 2020 and the European Investment Fund.

Meanwhile, sector specific projects are almost laughably small. The £500,000 investment boost for Fintech in particular shows a Government that really doesn't understand the scale of potential growth from this sector – a sector currently being strongly tempted by Berlin and Frankfurt.

And the statement also saw more taxes for businesses, including yet another hike in insurance premiums and an increase in employer national insurance, something that the Conservatives in the past have railed against as a 'jobs tax'.

The much-touted support for those just about managing also turned out to mean little in practice. A 2% reduction in the taper for Universal Credit does almost nothing to help those already hit far harder by George Osborne's 2015 cuts to Universal Credit. The Government also decided to keep in place the freeze on public sector pay which, with higher inflation will mean the average teacher losing almost £4,000 over the course of the next four years.

It is very unlikely that this further massive fiscal constraint would have been needed if it were not for Brexit. Which makes Labour's failures even more frustrating. John McDonnell cannot possible hold the Chancellor to account while backing, as he did last week, the Conservative's key decision on Brexit. Labour's failures as an opposition make the Liberal Democrat voice, as the only real challengers on Brexit, even more important.

This Autumn Statement made clear what more and more people are now realising. The Government cannot be trusted to support business and our economy while championing Brexit, and Labour cannot provide the opposition we need.

Tim Farron is Leader of the Liberal Democrats and MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale