On Wednesday 28th October, Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Healey, announced a series of alterations and continuants aimed at giving the UK more “breathing space” and “headroom” with small changes making for a rather ‘conservative’ budget – is this what the country needs, or is it a distraction aimed at granting this Labour government more time at the head of the table?
Arguably a more telling question would be whether or not this budget is what the Member for Makerfield promised the nation when he was elected as leader of his party and consequentially Prime Minister. In the months since the 20th July, Burnham has promised to end “forty years of neoliberalism” and four pence off the price of gherkins is a blatantly far cry from this pledge becoming a realisation. Andy Burnham had run on a promise of hope and a bright future for the country, contrasting the hate-filled and sorrow-inducing politics of today with the rise of extremist, racist parties such as Reform UK; so far there has been arguably little to suggest that there will be much less than business as usual. Thus, a keen-eyed reader may come to the conclusion that Burnham is making painfully slow progress toward his goals, quite the opposite of the radical change that was promised.
What Burnham and more specifically, John Healey, announced this last Wednesday as one of their more substantial pledges was a £100 energy rebate given to twenty million households in council tax bands A-D at a one-off cost of £2.6bn, alongside the removal of standing charges from household gas bills. Whilst this is undoubtedly beneficial to lower income households, with the average gas bill in the country being £143.61 monthly, the promise of a one-off payment to a party’s typical voter base, with Labour historically scoring high amongst working-class voters, sounds suspiciously Trumpian in nature – with the US President claiming every citizen will receive $5000 if the Republicans win the upcoming midterm elections in a statement in September.
That being said, in defence of the new Prime Minister, he has been making a substantive amount of small, “Everyday fixes to make life easier for millions of Britons.” this has included changes such as introducing a £2 cap on bus fees or cutting business rates in favour of taxing gambling centres, with tax on high-stake machines rising from 20 to 25% in the budget, alongside making gambling centres and vape shops exempt from business rate cuts. These taxes alone are set to raise a further £150 million. This could prove that this government is stamping down on immoral businesses that ruin communities and cause a stain on highstreets.
Alongside the taxes on gambling, Burnham has stated he wants to go further, announcing a £210 million regeneration package in September for highstreets, aimed at rebuilding community centres and shared workspaces. Burnham took this sense of hope for the community further through the budget when the chancellor announced that from 2028, mayors will receive a percentage of income tax aimed at establishing new infrastructure.
From a fiscal perspective, this budget remains increasingly modest and unimpressive. Healey said that by 2029-30, the debt is set to fall by 0.7% of GDP – this is a relatively low figure and even if it were to seem comparatively large, the percentage is still over 83%. Aside from this, the overall consensus from banks is relatively stable – with much larger taxes on their operations expected in comparison to the 8% surcharge rate expected, the figure only rose from 3-6%.
Therefore, you could draw the conclusion that whilst Andy Burnham’s government is making progress toward their goal of ending neoliberalism, this remains incredibly slow and their budget only serves to enhance the prospect that it will be a long time until this Mancunian makes a sizable dent in the nation’s future prospects.