TORY POSTER BOY TO ANNOUNCE BUDGET TODAY - UPDATE
In what is a break with tradition and actually received a reprimand from the otherwise fairly inept Speaker of the House, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, a series of briefings to the press with Budget news was made and so we do know some of what to expect in the Budget.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is, first and foremost, a Tory, so if anything in the Budget appears to be too good to be true, then it is more than likely that a catch will lie within. So what announcements have already been made?
There have been a number, and here I will highlight a few but will UPDATE when Sunak has made the Budget announcement after PMQs:
NHS England will get £5.9bn to try to cope with the backlog of people waiting for tests and scans. This covers £2.3bn for diagnostic tests including clinics in shopping centres for scans; £1.5bn on beds equipment and new ‘surgical hubs’; and £2.1bn to improve IT. And the health department will get £5bn over the next three years for research and development.
On transport the government has announced that England's city regions will receive £6.9bn to spend on train, tram, bus and cycle projects. This includes £1.07bn for Greater Manchester, £1.05bn for the West Midlands and £830m for West Yorkshire. However, the figure of £6.9bn only includes £1.5bn of additional spending because the government is including the £4.2bn promised in 2019 alongside funding for buses announced by the prime minister last year. You see, the devil, as always, is in the detail.
Of course the government could always find more money by abandoning the HS2 project which, when the project was first mooted in 2009, was expected to cost an estimated £37.5billion. But the latest progress report reveals that the total cost could be around £106billion. Three times as much! The railway network was set up to connect major cities with a high speed train and if ever completed (more and more unlikely) will start at London’s Euston station and connect seven of the UK’s biggest cities: Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, and Sheffield. The trains are set to be faster than any others in Europe, operating at speeds of up to 250 mph). First touted as helping the environment by giving people more choice to travel by train rather than car it has since been revealed that there will be huge damage to the environment – trees and wildlife alike.
There is expected to be a rise in the National Living Wage from £8.91 per hour to £9.50, to come into effect from 1 April next year. This is a 59p rise so don’t go making plans to extravagantly order a takeaway just yet. And interestingly of course, this is 50p below what Labour have been asking for a living wage. It’s obvious that neither the Labour leadership team nor any Tory has ever had to live on this pittance. And if Labour had had the guts to put their demand at £15 per hour, as unions and other organisations have been calling for, the government may very well have raised it further. Ask for little and less than little is what you will get.
On housing the Treasury is allocating £1.8bn for building around 160,000 new homes on derelict or unused land, also known as brownfield sites, in England. An extra £9m will also go towards allowing councils to turn neglected urban spaces into "pocket parks" roughly the size of a tennis court. Careful, you might find we peasants have pleasant places in which to meet and plot the downfall of the government.
The government has announced £500m to support parents and children in England. This includes £200m to support families with complex issues; £82m to fund centres in 75 different areas to provide advice for parents; £100m for mental health support for expectant parents; and £50m for breastfeeding support. But let us not forget who closed the Sure Start centres in the first place.
Of course we mustn’t forget the £700m to protect UK borders including £74m for a new fleet of patrol boats. I don’t know about you but £74 million seems excessive to me, but perhaps these new patrol boats are to stop British citizens from trying to flee Plague Island.
We may yet have to swim our way to freedom. Through shit.
I promised an update on this after Sunak announced the budget, but really, what can be said? Is there anything which will make our lives better? Well, perhaps. While we're unable to heat our homes we can be reassured by the knowledge that champagne will be cheaper. Yay!
If you want to read a more detailed account of the Budget Mike Stanton has written an excellent piece for Critical Mass Magazine which you can find here https://creatingsocialism.org/budget-tricks-with-not-many-treats/
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