Am I the only one that thinks that the budget is good?!

LemaxObsessive

Could you get your mum to Citizens' Advice? What you describe doesn't seem fair or correct.

It’s so depressing that people think the only way to pay for things is to raise tax.

Pretending to look for work is not exactly a hardship.

No they’re not. It’s 37%.

Those who deliberately have more children will do so, whatever the fiscal disincentives. Unfortunately.

I don’t have any issues with any of it. The country needs to raise more money. People in this country want excellent public services but don’t want to pay for them. If this means paying a bit more tax, then that’s what has to happen. Scrapping the two child benefit cap may help families in poverty struggle a little less. Tax on electric vehicles is a good thing.

You can claim for quite awhile actually and the 35 hr isnt true - certainly not for both parents or single parents who can get away with about 16 hrs per week, even when their child is way over 2 yrs old.

Yes, all 250 of them. Wow.

This is still going to hammer the “starter jobs” market (so pubs/shops/leisure centres, where kids try to get some money for Uni or something on their CV to help them get shortlisted).

Have you noticed that pubs and restaurants etc don’t tend to open Monday/Tuesday any more, or maybe they open later and close earlier? Just wait until after Christmas. If you are trying to balance a budget (or even make a profit), you have the choice of either cutting costs (the most ££ of which might be staff and/or utilities) or you put up prices. If you aren’t confident that people will be willing to pay the price hike, your unit sales will decline (which means you need to revisit the staff/utility costs). It becomes a downward spiral.

I am sure there are a few snippets of sensible ideas in the budget, but I’ve not spotted them yet.

It was completely uninspiring and with no eye on the bigger picture.

This is not surprising as Labour do not have a plan or a vision for the future.

There was funding for health centres wasn't there?

You do realise that unless you’re severely disabled, ‘benefits’ don’t just allow you to claim forever as a choice, don’t you? Once your child turns 2, you have to begin preparing to look for work and then I think it’s when they’re two and a half years or 3 years old, you have to go back to work. Of course they could have more & more kids but there has to be an end at some point!
Those who are simply unemployed, have to log on and be tracked as they spend a minimum of 35 hours per week applying for jobs and working on their CV. So again, you absolutely cannot just ‘do nothing on benefits’. Even mildly disabled/unwell claimants have to do work related activities for a certain number of hours per week. It’s only severely disabled or terminally ill people who are left alone to ‘Sit on Benefits’ - which I doubt anyone with any empathy, would begrudge the severely disabled & terminally ill amongst us…….

One thing they could have done was raise the age for free prescriptions to 67. My DH gets his free, and he is still working full time!

59% of parents claiming UC are in work so I think that's a very harsh statement.

I’m not surprised some on mn like it but overall the benefit change won’t be wanted. They’ve probably bought some time until the local elections.

Yes, workers are wedged between high inflation, stagnant tax thresholds and paying even more tax so that Reeves can save her own skin to pay off her backbenchers to boot.

Are you always this heartless or just having a bad day?

I think it is pretty good on the whole but I've never known a budget that pleases everyone.

The reduction in energy bills with removal of the Green levy, freezing train fares and bus fares for commuters will improve cost of living expenses. Improving the minimum wage and pensions as well as the 2 child benefit cap again helps with individuals having enough to live on. I think guaranteeing school libraries in every primary and secondary school is important, plus investing in playgrounds, and freezing the price of prescriptions. Making PIP assessments face to face again is a good move, and narrowing down the motability cars allowed is also a positive. Yes, I wish there was more I could see for industry but it’s not a disaster which I thought it might have been and I am pleased with where the money is going.

And that is what is going to drag the country down further.

Not everyone but some people are reliant on benefits due to bad life choices. In any case, having children when you are reliant on state benefits is a bad life choice and having more than two children unless you are very secure financially is a bad life choice. I am now subsidising those choices and being penalised for being responsible and having sensible pension arrangements.

Everyone is affected by the freeze on income tax thresholds which aren’t even going up in line with inflation.

To those who are pleased with this budget, do they not bother you? Or do you not recognise them as de facto tax rises?

I agree. It was a decent safe piece of work which has been received that way despite a jumpy market. Some people are so determined to have been right about doom mongering that they will say anything at this stage not to admit it was fine.

I'm cross about the two child benefits cap being lifted but otherwise it doesn't seem too bad. There is some sensible stuff in there but it gets drowned out by the MSM moaning about things like the cash ISA limit being reduced (which my DH is really cross about but as I put some of my allowance in a shares ISA anyway, I don't care about that).

On the two child thing, I'd prefer the money to go into things like Surestart, libraries and childcare tax breaks.

Increasing income tax would have been more honest than freezing thresholds. It's also more progressive - when you freeze thresholds more of the burden falls on lower earners than when you raise the headline rate. Strong party over country vibes there for me.

A LOT of the measures are also rated as having a high or very high level of uncertainty on what they will raise so only time will tell if it has been a success in raising the money needed for all this extra spending.