Recent polling conducted by YouGov has shown that the public believe the annual budget announcement by the government to be the most positive in the last five years.
Despite this, roughly half of Britons also feel that this budget won’t make much of a difference to themselves or the country.
This modest budget sought to match “immediate action today” and give Britons “some breathing space on the cost of living”, with major announcements including a one-off payment of £100 to 20m households, the removal of standing charges, a three per cent tax rise for profiting banks, a 3.9 per cent increase in minimum wage, and plans to fully fund the Defence Investment Plan.
While Chancellor John Healy’s budget has been more well received in comparison to the previous budget under then-Chancellor Rachel Reeves, polling still reflects a bleak economic forecast of the UK.
74 per cent of Britons believe that the state of the economy is bad, and 51 per cent of Britons believe their household finances will get worse off in the next 12 months.
These views align with the response from students regarding the budget, with one student stating that “the budget doesn’t fix the long-term problems with the economy.”
Another student claimed that “the government has failed university students on loans,” referring to the absence of reforms to Plan two repayment thresholds, while Plan five students who work full time while at university from 2023 will lose nine per cent of their earnings due to minimum wage increases above £25,000.
The response from the Scottish Licensed Trade Association (SLTA) was that “there isn’t much to celebrate and we wait to see if the Scottish Government, through Barnett consequentials, makes its own decisions or potential changes.”
Businesses in Edinburgh will have to wait until the Scottish Budget on 3 December to see if the SNP aligns with Westminster’s policies.
While the general public has no issues with specific policy announcements from the Chancellor, there appears to be a general consensus that the budget has not gone far enough to make a real difference on the economic outlook of people’s lives and the country.
Photo by Aswin Mahesh on Unsplash
