Steve McCabe MP has said the Chancellor has missed an opportunity to improve the lives of those worst off and failed to tackle the crisis in NHS and social care following the Spring Budget today.
The Chancellor announced tax increases for self-employed people from next April, which will see nearly 2.5 million people pay £240 a year more in national insurance contributions. A fifth of people who are self-employed have their incomes topped up by tax credits, this tax rise will hit hard-working people already struggling to make ends meet.
The Chancellor also announced £66m per year for social care for 3 years but all the experts say we need £1.9Bn now to head off a crisis.
Other key announcements from the budget include:
– £320 million to fund 140 new selective schools and £216m investment in existing schools, that is more money for free schools than all other schools put together and not a penny for Baverstock. Seems all the fine words about choice don’t extend to Baverstock parents.
– Business rates transitional relief for small business, but this still does not deal with the impact rate increases will have on public bodies like the NHS
– Cut in corporation tax for business
– Midlands Engine strategy to be announced
Steve McCabe MP said:
“This was supposed to be a budget for people who are ‘just about managing’ but it will have little impact on those really struggling. The Chancellor has chosen to increase taxes for self-employed people and freeze tax credits which will hit those already struggling to make ends meet, the Tories are punishing those people trying to make a living on their own at the same time as cutting corporation taxes for businesses. This just doesn’t seem fair to me.
“The Chancellor told MPs that he wants to give every child the best start in life, well what about all the young people growing up in Druids Heath in my constituency- do they not deserve a good school? Rather than wasting money on opening new grammar schools the Government should check their priorities and use some of this money to save Baverstock Academy.
“While the Chancellor has now accepted we need urgent investment in our social care system, his announcement today of £2billion over the next 3 years is just a sticking plaster and won’t deal with a system that is facing collapse.
“Tax increases for the self-employed, tax credits frozen, new grammar schools where we don’t need them and the NHS and social care system on brink of collapse – this budget is a slap in the face to my constituents who are just trying to get on.”
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