Disney shares surge as Bob Iger returns; oil hit by China Covid worries – business live

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.

A chill is gripping the economy after chancellor Jeremy Hunt bluntly laid out a future of low growth, high taxation and a record fall in living standards in last week’s autumn statement.

Hunt’s £55bn package of spending cuts and tax rises may have calmed the markets, but it was conspicuously light on measures to boost the economy.

And today, Britain’s top business leaders will hear that Hunt’s statement has failed to address the UK’s fundamental growth problem. They’re gathering in Birmingham for the CBI Annual Conference, where CBI director-general Tony Danker will warn that people’s lives will get worse without a push on growth.

Danker (who had praised the pro-growth measures in the ill-fated mini-budget) will applaud Hunt’s efforts to get inflation down, but warn that the growth part of the puzzle is missing.

He’s expected to say:

The painful reality about growth is that it can’t be stimulated overnight. That’s what the mini budget got wrong. Across the board tax cuts. Immediate demand stimulus. Relying on the old British strength − consumption − at the expense of the perennial British weakness − investment − has given growth a bad name.

“But growth is good. Growth is a precondition to a stable society. Without growth the NHS gets worse not better. People’s lives get worse not better. And we lack the resources we need to transform ourselves to a zero-carbon world.

“Yet Britain’s had 15 years of low growth and flatlining productivity. We can’t afford a repeat.

The Office for Budget Responsibility forecast last week that the UK has fallen into a recession that will last for over a year, with GDP expected to shrink by 1.4% in 2023.

That’s only half the problem; Danker will also warn that Britain is in the middle of stagflation – hit with rocketing inflation as well as negative growth.

Policymakers can’t just choose to fight one or the other, he’ll argue:

“The predictable reaction is to choose which ‘evil’ is worst. But that just leads to different kinds of problem. Ignore inflation to get growth going and we’ve seen what happens. Immediate trauma. Ignore growth to get inflation down?

Prolonged pain. I reject the idea that you have to choose. I say you daren’t choose.

The OBR reckons that inflation may be peaking – but price pressures will remain intense for many months more before finally easing towards the end of next year.

Danker rolled the pitch on Sunday, telling the BBC that Hunt’s statement had been “all about fighting inflation and getting the government budget in some decent shape and that does need to be done”.

But he added that:

There was really nothing there that tells us the economy is going to avoid another decade of low productivity and low growth”.

Danker will give his speech at 10am, followed by Rishi Sunak. He shouldn’t struggle improve on Boris Johnson’s effort last year, when the then-PM stumbled through his speech, hailed Peppa Pig World, and delivered a grunting impression of an acceleratinng car.

Related: ‘Embarrassing’: Boris Johnson criticised for rambling speech to CBI

Top economists will give their verdict on the autumn statement to MPs this afternoon.

The Treasury committee will hear from Dr Linda Yueh, Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford University, Mike Brewer, chief economist of Resolution Foundation, Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist of Pantheon Economics, and Carl Emmerson, deputy director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Financial markets are edgy, as investors fret about fresh Covid-19 restrictions in China.

Beijing’s most populous district is urging residents to stay at home today after a rise in caes, with at least one district in Guangzhou being locked down for five days.