What's in the Red Box? Roll up for the MNHQ Budget Day thread

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

As lots of you will know, at 3.30pm today the Chancellor Philip 'Spreadsheet' Hammond will be presenting the government's budget to the House of Commons.*

MNHQ sometimes gets asked for comment from journalists on budget measures that affect families, so we thought this year we'd start a dedicated thread for you to let us know what you think as the nation gets its calculators out.

Some stories/guesses/leaks that have been heavily trailed in the weekend newspapers and this morning:

There's speculation that 'better-than-expected tax returns have given Hammond a £13bn windfall, reducing the need for the substantial tax increases' - but Hammond has stressed that 'the measures being announced would be contingent on the government securing a Brexit deal... in the event of there being no deal, he would have to return to parliament with an emergency budget setting out an alternative economic strategy for the UK' (The Guardian)

£2bn for the mental health crisis among children and young people by 2023-24, with headlines talking about 'a mental health unit in every school and hospital' (The Times, £; The Guardian)

A special Brexit 50p coin (The Sun)

Extra money for road and pot hole repairs, and a continued freeze on fuel duty (New Statesman)

An increase in the personal allowance to £12.5k, and an increase in the threshold for top-rate tax to £50k p/a (BBC)

A £650m 'Future High Streets' fund to 'help retailers adapt' as Brits take their shopping custom online, combined with a £900m cut to 'business rates for independent retailers' and a new tax for 'internet giants' (Daily Mail)

A possibility that there will be 'extra cash to ease the transition to Universal Credit when its rolls out nationally from next year' (The Independent)

Please do add any other stories you've seen, let us have your thoughts on the rumours so far, and (if you feel comfortable doing so) tell us how this will affect the people and things you care about.

Thanks
MNHQ

*'Spreadsheet' is Mr Hammond's nickname among his colleagues, apparently

jasjas1973

I just get irritated by the total lack of context on these type of threads when people will spout any old tribal shite in order to smear their opponents. The ‘PFI was started by Major’ trope being a perfect example that I felt obliged to pick up on.

Some PFI contracts did offer good value for money, most however did not and various studies over the years have shown that traditional forms of infrastructure procurement (I.e government borrowing) offered better value to the tax payer. Also, I don’t quite buy into the ‘private companies exploited the governemt’ narrative. It was government competence and lack of due diligence that led to these eye wateringly expensive contracts bein signed off, not the naughty private sector.

PFI's are interesting. John McDonnell is bleating that they will buy their way out of them. With what money? I believe 90% of them were signed during a Labour government and I suspect were used to make the Labour figures look better than they were. After all 'someone' else was paying.

I think PH has made the right decision. It would cost billions to buy out so that is a stupid idea. Just don't have any more and let them die out.

it is very easy for the lefties to spend other people's money when they have stacks to fall back on should their idealistic ideals go wrong.

Tony Benn springs to mind immediately.

I think PH has made the right decision. It would cost billions to buy out so that is a stupid idea. Just don't have any more and let them die out.

Let what die out, the NHS? Because the Tories keep extending PFI contracts when they don't need to, and they're tieing us into contracts that will go well into the next government so no hope for change.

The Tories are privatising the NHS, the only people that are benefiting are Branson and his ilk. Is that what you want?

Because the Tories keep extending PFI contracts when they don't need to

Evidence? I'm not aware of this but I may have missed something.

The Tories are privatising the NHS

I really get fed up with this attack line from Labour supporters. The Tories have apparently been privatising the NHS for nearly 40 years yet somehow it hasn't happened yet.

NHS privatising won't happen through PFI contracts. They aren't good news gene they are badly thought out and skewed massively in favour of the private contractor but ultimately they are about replacing aged building and infrastructure.

The real danger of privatisation is coming through the advent of accountable care organisations or integrated care organisations - this is where big contracts for actual clinical service provision will be let to private organisations.

It was government competence and lack of due diligence that led to these eye wateringly expensive contracts being signed off, not the naughty private sector

It was indeed, but as you suggested, too often tribal nonsense takes the place of looking objectively at the facts

We can consider individual mistakes which all governments make, or we can use every issue as nothing more than an opportunity to smear "the opposition"

Personally I prefer the first

Personally I prefer the first

So do I.

But I will not be holding my breath for any such nuanced analysis to appear on these forums where some people refuse to even be friends with someone who does not share their narrow world view.

@PanGalaticGargleBlaster

Are you saying the private sector owes no responsibility when they walk away with eye watering profitable PFI contracts?

All governments screw up, i wont start a Whataboutery diversion but i'm sure we can find examples of Tory incompetence on a grand scale.

As much as PFI has been very badly handled, the NHS without these 100 hospitals would be in an even more sorry state,
PFI pre GFC was a good way to keep borrowing down (its stratospheric now) get private sector investment and expertise into the bloated state sector, with that comes responsibility for all sides to behave honourably and competently.
If business cannot and just see it as a chance to rip us all off, then they shouldn't be allowed near our public services.

Are you saying the private sector owes no responsibility when they walk away with eye watering profitable PFI contracts?

Their only responsibility is to their shareholders or other private stakeholders. If the government of the day (or its appointed agents) are too incompetent to negotiate a fair and reasonable contract then that's their problem (and the taxpayers) not the private company concerned who have just taken advantage of an open goal. You are extremely naive if you think any kind of moral responsibility comes into it.

All governments screw up, i wont start a Whataboutery diversion but i'm sure we can find examples of Tory incompetence on a grand scale

I'm sure you can, I can probably help you compile a list. But we are talking about PFI which despite its Tory origins is something New Labour dined out on for over a decade despite repeated warnings that the scheme was offering increasingly poor value for money to the tax payer.

As much as PFI has been very badly handled, the NHS without these 100 hospitals would be in an even more sorry state

We simply don't know that. Maybe the same number of hospitals would have been built under traditional procurement and financing? Maybe half that number would have been built? Gordon Brown loved PFI as there was no requirement to keep the liabilities 'on the books' (same with pension liabilities) so a very distorted picture was painted of the state of the nations finances. Labour was the beneficiary of record tax receipts at the time, did they really need to go all out with PFI? Private Eye was doing reports on how crap most of these contracts were for years but the party went on as there were too many ministers personally enriching themselves on the gravy train.

If business cannot and just see it as a chance to rip us all off, then they shouldn't be allowed near our public services.

See my point above!

They were invited to bid for these contracts, operating within the legal framework set out by Labour.

If business cannot (behave honourably and competently) and just see it as a chance to rip us all off, then they shouldn't be allowed near our public services

I totally agree with this, but those businesses don't just find themselves involved one day; they usually have to tender, and then it comes down to public service managers acting responsibly, choosing wisely and refusing the backhanders

If they're not able to do that - and some clearly can't - then I'd suggest they should be allowed nowhere near our public services either

Cross posted with you, PanGalactic - only you put it much better

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/grenfell-universal-credit-christmas_uk_5bd89e7fe4b07427610c2202

Gidiot borrowed more in 5 years than every Labour government ever. Under the Tories debt has gone from about £750Bn to about £1.8Trn and we have nothing to show for it.

Debt won't go down when your in a deficit. Does your credit card debt go down if your added monthly interest is more than the minimum monthly payments you are making? No.

We have nothing to show from it, except for a deficit reduction of over £100 billion. The deficit that was £103billion in 2010 and now nearly 9 years later is back down to £1.9billion.

From ons.gov.

General government gross debt was £1,763.8 billion at the end of the financial year ending March 2018, equivalent to 85.6% of gross domestic product (GDP), 25.6 percentage points above the reference value of 60% set out in the Protocol on the Excessive Deficit Procedure.

General government gross debt first exceeded the 60% Maastricht reference value at the financial year ending March 2010, when it was 69.6% of GDP.

You will note @Biker47 that deficit has shrunk, true, but it has grown as a percentage of GDP, from under 70% in 2010 to over 85% now. So yes, they have shrunk the deficit at the same time as shrinking the economy.

It is still true that Gidiot borrowed more in 5 years than every Labour government ever.

The person on an average wage apparently will pay £130 less in income tax per year from next April. Those on higher rate tax £800 a year less.

Says a lot about the Tories.

Not really, ForalltheSaints Considering that those taxed at the higher rate pay much more tax in the first place, altering the thresholds means their reduction will also be greater

There's also the point that about 27% of income tax comes from just the top 1% of payers

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39641222

Here is a ‘reality check’ article from the BBC

www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39999460

The claim: The governments since 2010 have borrowed more than all the Labour governments in history.

Reality Check verdict: That's true in cash terms but not when you take into account the growing economy.

Among the more eye-catching claims of the campaign so far has been Jeremy Corbyn's repeated assertion that the Conservative-led governments since 2010 have borrowed more money than all Labour governments in history.

This can be checked using the Bank of England's handy three centuries of economic data spreadsheet.

The simplest way to examine this claim is to compare the amounts in cash terms, add up the amounts borrowed by all Labour governments and compare the total with the amount borrowed since 2010.

By this calculation, the combined Labour governments borrowed a little more than £500bn over their 33 years while the governments since 2010 have borrowed a bit more than £670bn.

So it's true in cash terms, but is that a fair or useful comparison?

During the first Labour government under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924, a loaf of bread cost less than 2d on average. Also, our economy produces very considerably more today than it did in 1924, which means it is not unreasonable for the government to borrow more.

So a better comparison to make is government borrowing as a proportion of GDP, which is a measure of everything produced in the economy.

By that measure it turns out that all Labour governments borrowed about 70% of GDP while the governments since 2010 borrowed about 40% of GDP, which is a very different picture.

Even that is not necessarily a fair comparison. For example, there was a big fall in debt as a proportion of GDP after 1976, despite Jim Callaghan's government going to the International Monetary Fund for a big loan.

That happened because the following years of very high inflation reduced the value of the government's debts.

Their only responsibility is to their shareholders or other private stakeholders. If the government of the day (or its appointed agents) are too incompetent to negotiate a fair and reasonable contract then that's their problem (and the taxpayers) not the private company concerned who have just taken advantage of an open goal

You ve made a perfect argument for why we should never let the private sector to be allowed anywhere nr our public services.
Its just not reasonable to expect a Government to be able to be the equal of corporate nat/international business in high stakes deals.

Its just not reasonable to expect a Government to be able to be the equal of corporate nat/international business in high stakes deals.

Well actually I do, they are not bloody toddlers. Given that the government is the architect of the legal framework and regulations that any deal will be conducted under, that they have at their disposal vast resources to appoint industry experts and specialist consultant firms to advise or act on their behalf, I do expect any government to be suitably briefed and competent. That is the most basic requirement I would expect from any party in power whether I agree with their policies or not.

You ve made a perfect argument for why we should never let the private sector to be allowed anywhere nr our public services.

OK, so you want all GP partnerships to be scrapped (most GP surgeries are private businesses run by the partner GPs)? You want all opticians, pharmacists and dentists who are private businesses doing NHS work to be stripped of NHS work? You want all suppliers of the NHS to lose their contracts (Including equipment manufacturers, drugs companies, building firms, etc)?

Back on planet Earth, all public sector organisations are inextricably associated with private businesses - there is no other way. What is needed is for the public sector procurement/managers to do their jobs properly, read the sodding contracts they're signing, go out into the marketplace and get proper quotes from multiple vendors (just like private firms do!). If the procurement/managers can't do that, or are incapable of doing that, they need sacking!

The public procurement rules (and those in the public sector will have handbooks an inch thick on these) require an awful lot of attention to be paid to public tendering and the terms and prices. If competitors who did not win the contract feel the rules were not followed they can and do apply for injunctions to stop the contract award going ahead.

Doctors only agreed to join the NHS if they could remain self employed people owning their own private profit making businesses and it has always been so. They were not prepared to be paid employees of the state.

The budget was okay. I would rather a lot less was spent but it is very much a holding budget with Brexit on the horizon and I wanted digital VAT postponed from next April as that is so close to Brexit but that did not happen.

It was a very middle ground budget which is one reason this Government is poower. Whoever hold the centre ground in the UK tends to get elected which does not bode well for Corbyn in 2022 as he is more to the left. Good.

OK, so you want all GP partnerships to be scrapped (most GP surgeries are private businesses run by the partner GPs)? You want all opticians, pharmacists and dentists who are private businesses doing NHS work to be stripped of NHS work

I was answering the other poster who thinks the gov should be the match for the likes of Branson et el... won't happen... gov procurement for decades has been hoodwinked by private business, esp defence and health, there just isn't the expertise out there to match corp sector, once we acknowledge this, we can perhaps be a bit more circumspect in what we can or not expect each sector to deliver for best VFM.

But thanks, you ve made my argument!

GP appointments = rocking horse shit, 3 week waits down here! if they are a supposedly private practice, they should train their own GPs and not expect the tax payer to do it free, same applies to dentists too! but of course they are only "Private" when it suits them lol!
Opticians = £100s to buy essential eye wear
NHS dentists = rocking horse shit, after 16 years of trying, my child NEVER got NHS dentistry, despite it being a lawful requirement.

Pharma = rips off NHS on drugs and equipment