Budget Statement

Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted Excerpts

Friday 12th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Chancellor has put in place more support for the economy. Unfortunately, it still contains unfairness, especially to the self-employed, such as freelance musicians, which mars what are otherwise generous provisions. It is hard to see generosity going everywhere else, knowing that you will share in the payback. While continuing help through furlough schemes, rate support, stamp duty and VAT reductions is to be phased out, it looks like a cliff edge for universal credit—although I think the £20 should be made permanent and that spare money would be better spent on stimulating growth than on house prices.

Balancing longer-term public finances looks challenging to meet by 2025; there is plenty of time for corporate pressure before the 25% tax rate kicks in, and the public service savings plans look unrealistic, horrifying, or both. The autumn spending review already took £12 billion a year out of pre-pandemic plans, and the Budget claims another £4 billion. How can that be done with backlogs in spending needs everywhere—in school catch-up, cancelled operations, court hearings, broken public transport and failed social care?

We may have had honesty about some of the problems that lie ahead and when tax changes will take effect, but while the Chancellor has stuck to tax promises in the manifesto, he has not stuck with the pandemic manifesto of “Save the NHS”. There is no saving the NHS with a 1% pay rise for nurses or with the pre-Covid spending plans, when there is a year’s backlog of missed treatments, some, sadly, causing loss of life, but many creating greater need, and alongside that, long-term Covid requirements and vaccine top-ups.