Back down to London, for Gordon Brown's last budget - noone even pretended to believe otherwise today! Obviously there'll be plenty about it in the media, but I think the budget will go down pretty well, particularly with Labour's traditional supporters, with the emphasis on taking pensioners and children out of poverty. It also seems to me be quite good for business as well, with the cuts in corporation tax and simplification of some of the complex rules on tax relief for investment.
It's also a reflection of how much the political climate (sorry about the pun!) has changed that the only criticism of what in the past would have been seen as a big increase in car tax for "gas guzzlers" is that it wasn't big enough! Actually, once the budget is examined, measures like the increase in climate change levy, aggregates levy, and landfill tax, along with the tax breaks for energy efficient buildings and proposed cuts in VAT for energy saving products, will do much, much more to cut carbon emissions.
But, as I've said elsewhere, if the the political debate is now conducted on the basis of what is the "greenest" proposal, then I'm not complaining, even if the supposed "green shift" of the Conservative Party is more gimmick than substance, as I think it is.
Like most in the chamber, I was amused, though, at the way that the Budget package clearly wrong-footed David Cameron, most of whose speech was basically just another personal attack on the Chancellor. It may have looked good on TV - I'll have a look tonight, but I really don't think he'll be able to get away for that long without being more specific about his policies. I was also genuinely puzzled at the line taken by Ming Campbell for the LibDems. He seemed to be arguing that the money raised from "green" taxes should NOT be used to spend on positive green measures (which I thought was at the heart of LibDem policy in this area), but should have been used to reduce taxes.
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I'm going to guess that Ming Campbell was arguing that as you take more taxes on 'green' issues, you should reduce taxes in others - not necessarily arguing for overall tax cuts, but arguing in favour of some carrot as well as the plenty of tax stick that's been going about.
Since, as we know, Gordon Brown's steadily cranked up the amount of money taken overall in tax for all the time he's been in power.
Though of course that headline-grabbing 2% cut in income tax is a nice example of that sort of thing, with it not really being much of a cut after all. Not once you consider that the 10% band which was so proudly introduced a few years ago by one Gordon Brown is now being abolished, and we know that NI contributions are being cranked up for folk earning a reasonable sum. (And why on earth doesn't anyone have the courage and honesty to just call NI "Income Tax Part 2", and lump the two in together?)
Interesting that you think the budget will go down pretty well, hadn't realised you were a closet Tory! At least, the early opinion polling that's been done since the Budget seems to suggest more people think it's an unfair budget than last year's, more people think that workers on low incomes will be hit harder, and of course the thought of Gordon Brown leading the Labour Party seems to nudge Labour support down and Tory support up!
Does seem a bit sad that there won't even be any meaningful contest for the Labour leadership though, every other party in the UK seems to have managed to have more than one credible candidate...
I earn 15000 I am single I am not a pensioner just how am I better of
My point about LibDems and "green taxes" was that I thought their policy was to increase taxes on environmental "bads" and cut them on environmental "goods", but certainly the impression you got from Ming Campbell's speech was that he was drawing back from that link.
On the 2p reduction in basic tax, simplifying the tax bands makes sense - and don't forget the basic tax rate is now much less than it was when the 10p rate was introduced. However, although the figures are quite clear that the majority of people on lower incomes will be better off as a result of the changes in the budget (see the Institute of Fiscal Studies - hardly a Labour mouthpiece - view on this), I accept that there will be some who will lose out as a result of the abolition of the 10p band. And I hope that something more can be done for this group before the abolition of the 10p comes into effect next year (which hopefully answers your point, Mr Macvean).
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