Yesterday, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt set out his Spring Budget, with two of Bedford Borough’s local MPs taking to social media to issue reactions both for and against what Mr Hunt says will, “..put the country back on the path to lower taxes”.
Speaking to a full House of Commons, he announced various key points including cuts to National Insurance that will see workers’ National Insurance fall from 10% to 8%.
He says this could create a saving of £450 a year for the average worker.
Speaking to the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason, Hunt confirms he is “making progress” towards abolishing NI altogether, but didn’t say whether income tax would be cut before the election
The child benefit threshold is rising from £50,000 to £60,000 and the freeze on alcohol duty will continue until 2025.
The VAT threshold for small businesses was raised to £90,000, and there will also now be higher taxes on vapes and business-class flights.
And he says he’s “abolishing” the “non-dom” tax system, but it;ll be four years until new arrivals to the UK will pay taxes on foreign income.
Local Labour reaction
Mohammad Yasin, Labour MP for Bedford and Kempton was critical of the budget which he said will make Bedfordians worse off.
“The country was crying out for a Budget that would show them the way out of the cost-of-living crisis,” he said.
“But my constituents will be worse off at the end of this Parliament than they were at the beginning and public services are going to take the hit again to pay for the cut to national insurance confirmed today.
He also echoed Labour leader Kier Starmer, saying the Government are “scrabbling round for more sticking plasters, to cover the damage they’ve inflicted on this country.”
“This is a Government running on fumes, out of ideas and living in a parallel universe telling us while we are in a recession caused by their economic failures that we are better off.
“I campaigned for the changes we’ve seen today on changes to the child benefit salary threshold and Labour has campaigned for years on abolishing the non-dom tax status.
“It should not have taken the Government so long to make these improvements to people’s lives and makes a mockery of their claims that these things were not possible before.
“Today’s Budget should be the final chapter of fourteen years of Tory economic failure,” added Mr Yasin.
Highest Tax in 70 years
Despite the reduction in some areas, Mr Yasin has reiterated his party’s claim that taxation is now the highest it’s been in 70 years.
“…even after today’s announcements, workers are still paying the highest taxes in 70 years, national debt is still growing and the country is getting less and less in return,” said Mr Yasin.
“Even the UK’s higher earners are on track for the biggest fall in their disposable income on record.
“There was no plan for growth today, no plan on how to fix the crisis in the NHS, social care, the housing crisis, mortgage rates, the cost-of-living crisis, wage stagnation and the severing of the social contract with the younger generation.”
Looking into the claim that taxation is the highest it has been for 70 years, the BBC has confirmed that the overall level of taxation last year was the highest for more than 70 years.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the independent body which makes forecasts for the government, also predicts it will get higher too.
Their figures show that it will collect 37.1p of every pound generated in the economy in 2028-29. That would be the highest level in 80 years.
A “safe and reassuring” budget
On Mr Hunt’s side of the house, however, Conservative MP for North Bedfordshire Richard Fuller said his Government’s Budget was not “an election giveaway”.
In a video on his Facebook page, Mr Fuller said that while he still needs to look more deeply into the Budget set out by Mr Hunt, listening in the chamber his immediate take was that the Budget was “safe and reassuring”.
He called the Budget a “plan for long-term economic growth” adding that there “was good news” with inflation and mortgage rates falling.
Mr Fuller also highlighted what he said was a “good emphasis on trying to get productivity improvements, particularly in the NHS”.
But, while he admitted he would have liked the Chancellor to go further, he said the core of what the Chancellor is trying to do is to “cut taxes on working people”.
