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Budget: Hammond breaks manifesto promises on national insurance
Given the recent speculation about an early election it’s probably worth saying this was the least plausible pre-election Budget in history.
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Joining us from his constituency in Stevenage, the Conservative MP Stephen McPartland and here in the studio Torsten Bell from the Resolution Foundation.
The Chancellor fends off a furious backlash from his own backbenches, the media and voters after breaking his party’s pre-election pledge not to raise national insurance – no matter how sensible the measure itself might be. Fatima Manji reports.
The Institute of Fiscal Studies comes out in support of the plan to raise national insurance contributions for some self-employed workers. It said the government HAD broken its manifesto pledge, but had been foolish ever to promise not to raise the tax in the first place. Helia Ebrahimi reports.
It was a Budget statement that never mentioned Brexit, but felt largely dictated by it. For all his attempts to sound upbeat about improving public finances, Chancellor Philip Hammond kept the austerity handbrake firmly on, saying every penny of extra spending would be balanced by tax increases.
Priya Guha, a former diplomat and now general manager at Rocket Space, which supports new tech businesses, and the writer, economist and director of the Centre for Labour and Social Studies, Faiza Shahee
Sefton, on Merseyside, has one of the highest proportions of elderly residents of any English constituency. It’s a place where the local council spends more than half its budget on adult social care. So will the Government offer today be enough to fill their funding gap?
One of the notable things about the Chancellor’s 55-minute statement was how much it didn’t say. There was nothing, for instance, about climate change.
Treasury Minister Jane Ellison and Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey.
So often with the Budget, the devil is in the details, with facts often passed over in a single sentence from the Chancellor emerging later as significant changes.
There was mixed news for businesses from the Chancellor, with help for some small firms struggling with higher bills from the reform of business rates, but a sizeable tax hit from a cut in dividend tax reliefs for shareholders and directors and higher national insurance contributions for many self-employed workers.
Given the recent speculation about an early election it’s probably worth saying this was the least plausible pre-election Budget in history.
In the last Spring budget tomorrow few big shifts or radical changes are expected from the Chancellor.
The Government is to make £320m pounds available to fund 140 new free schools in England. And that could pave the way for some of the new schools to become selective grammar schools.
Downing Street says George Osborne “absolutely” has the full support of David Cameron after the government was plunged into turmoil by Iain Duncan Smith’s resignation.
The Resolution Foundation has been crunching the numbers from the Budget and they say they point to real average pay taking even longer to get back to pre-crash levels.