Spring Budget 2024

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome two announcements in the Budget, one of which was touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister.

Last month, along with other noble Lords, I called for an extension of the household support fund, which was otherwise due to expire at the end of this month. This is money from the DWP to local authorities to help households struggling with food and energy costs. Some £2.5 billion has been invested in this scheme since October 2022. It is the largest investment in the capacity of local authorities to deliver crisis support following the abolition of the Social Fund. Local authorities, the budgets of which are under pressure, would not have been able to find the £900 million to carry on with the scheme, so top marks to the Chancellor for listening to those requests and for extending it.

However, it is now due to expire at the end of September, just before a general election and during the Labour Party conference. I am surprised that none of the spads in the Treasury spotted this elephant trap. I hope that, between now and then, the Government will either bring the support into line with other local government funding and run it through to the end of the year or work up some alternative scheme to replace it, such as what was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister; otherwise, it will become a very hot political issue.

I welcome the introduction of a British ISA, which has not been mentioned so far in our debate, and notwithstanding some of the negative comments in the press. The Times said:

“Why backing British comes at a cost”.


The Sunday Times money section said:

“Jeremy Hunt’s new Isa is a nonsense”.


That appeared a few pages after the business news the very same day had a share tip that said:

“Clean up with this firm”,


backing a UK firm making cleaning products.

There is a good pedigree for this initiative—the business expansion scheme, the enterprise investment scheme and venture capital trusts. All these are aimed at encouraging investment in UK companies. The British ISA extends the principle to smaller investors and UK-quoted companies. I take the point about definition, on which the Government are consulting, but can my noble friend tell the House whether the scheme will be up and running before the general election?

I want to raise a point about stamp duty and the abolition of multiple dwellings relief, on which I have written to the Minister. I take the point about abuse, which was mentioned in the Budget debate, but there is an unforeseen consequence. In our housing debate last Thursday, I made the point that we need to get long-term institutional finance into the private rented sector to replace the private landlord who is now exiting. Such institutions often buy large numbers of properties before converting them into purpose-built flats. Those hoping to invest in student accommodation could be affected. Can my noble friend have a look at this and see whether the collateral damage might be avoided?

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, that it was right to cut national insurance, although when he, a former civil servant, described a Government’s decision as “courageous”, it took me back to several episodes of “Yes Minister”. On the ambition to abolish national insurance, I think a more achievable goal would be to merge it with income tax. The two are now sufficiently similar that merging is a plausible option, bringing increased transparency and reduced administrative and compliance costs—though there are some potential obstacles, such as the contributory principle.

My concern about the Budget is about not this year but the future. Real per capita day-to-day spending for unprotected departments is set to fall by 13% over the next five years—nearly as much as in the so-called years of austerity. Those are justice, with the problems with the prisons and courts; local government, with growing pressure on adult services and many local authorities at risk of going bankrupt; and pressure on the Home Office and policing. I ask myself whether those reductions are really achievable, and how the public might react were they to happen.

Finally, over the weekend I was rereading the Ministerial Code and came across paragraph 9.1:

“When Parliament is in session, the most important announcements of Government policy should be made in the first instance, in Parliament”.


No one doubts that the Budget Statement is such a policy, so is the country not fortunate to have such perceptive economic correspondents in all our newspapers and media that, independently, they all came to the same conclusion that the only logical thing for the Chancellor to do was to cut national insurance by 2%, and that they then persuaded their editors to back their hunch with a splash and a lead story? I leave the alternative explanation hanging in the air.