Budget

  • The Chancellor sticks to her safety settings

    The Chancellor has been waited on for nearly a year for a follow up to a blockbuster first budget hot on the heels of a landslide election win for a reenergised Labour party.

    This is it. A slimmed down vision of the nations finances as she tackles the key points of modern life in the UK to meet the challenges it faces.

    The Chancellor speaking in the House of Commons today on her budget for this year.

    While some stand to gain, any lifestyle progress is going to be made up of costly improvements as a result of a need to balance the books.

    The Treasury is introducing a High Value Council Tax Surcharge on properties above £2 million; will charge National Insurance contributions to employee and employer on pension sacrifices above £2,000; and will impose a per mile tax on electric and hybrid vehicles.

    While these steps may seem punitive to some, the Government believes it can afford to risk marginal increases to the cost of living in the current climate to relieve the pressure put on the public finances.

    It’s not an uplifting budget for everyone, but it’ll reassure the Labour faithful that tough times won’t fall on them any harder, and there are measures to help protect the poorest that they can support.

  • The Budget offers a chance for protections

    The matters people face everyday are guided by concerns over safety and security. It’s in the fine print of worries about online data and the use of cookies in a browser or adverts in email inboxes.

    This is how we do it now. We have to think about how safe our information is, and about how secure our finances really are.

    The Treasury is about to release another Budget to the country, and it’s about time these issues are covered. They can’t be left to statements or new internal policies that guide law enforcement.

    It must be built into the framework of a responsible fiscal outlook. The changes the Government mandates must work out for us or we’re left to the wolves of finance.

  • Labour’s Labour budget

    It’s a great thing to front a budget, but not if you’re the Conservatives sitting on the opposite bench.

    Yesterday was a bad day for Tories here, there, and everywhere because of the sight of Rachel Reeves MP (Leeds West and Pudsey/Labour).

    @UKLabour – X

    She’s new at the despatch box as Chancellor, but an old hat at explaining difficult truths. She put a lot of fight into it.

    The budget involves a lot of Labour touch points, like breakfast clubs, schools, and pensions. It’s a shopping list with a popular touch.

  • Duncan Smith slams budget

    Iain Duncan Smith MP (Chingford and Woodford Green/Conservatives) has hit out at the Chancellor’s budget, calling it “a budget full of broken promises”.

    In a social media post on X, he pointed to tax rises, National Insurance increases, and increases in the debt burden as to why he opposes the budget.

  • Reeves’ first budget (National News Report)

  • Labour’s stability rule

    In a budget announced today by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves MP (Leeds West and Pudsey/Labour), a “stability rule” is introduced to reign in public spending and take back control of government finances.

    “The stability rule (which is the government’s fiscal mandate) requires that the current budget must be in surplus in 2029-30, until 2029-30 becomes the third year of the forecast period…Balancing the current budget means that the government’s day-to-day spending is met by revenues and so ensures that, over the medium term, borrowing is only for investment. This means future generations will not be burdened with the costs of public services today.”

    It means in future, if adhered to, any public service will be funded by income recovered by the government rather than by more and more borrowing, which is already beyond our ability to repay.

  • What a budget means