Commenting on today's (Wednesday) Budget, TUC General
Secretary Paul Nowak said:
“The Chancellor has delivered urgent relief to millions of
hard-pressed households up and down the country and helped
to rebuild our public services.
“Bringing down energy bills and taking action to
make work pay will make a real difference to people
struggling to get by. Scrapping the two-child benefit cap will
lift hundreds of thousands of kids out of poverty. And
new investment in young people, our public services and
infrastructure is much needed.
“The policy decisions announced
today will
disproportionately benefit those low
and middle income households at the sharp
end – and tax increases will fall on the
wealthiest.
“Fourteen years of Conservative government took a wrecking ball
to living standards – with
pay packets squeezed, child poverty at crisis levels
and vital public services left on their knees after years of
cuts.
“This government is starting to turn the page on that failed Tory
era.
“But fixing the mess that the Tories left will take time. We now
need to see a relentless focus on affordability and making work
pay beyond this Budget.
“That's how you rebuild the country and show you're on the side
of working people.”
On fair taxes to fund public services in the
long-term, Paul added:
“The task of repairing Britain will need years of
sustained investment.
“To deliver the vital funds needed to rebuild our country,
we need a fair tax system where those with the
broadest shoulders pay their fair share.
“With a tax on online gambling companies, a
mansion tax and increased taxes on dividends and
investments, the chancellor has built on the measures
she announced last year to make our tax system fairer. But
we need to go further in years ahead by continuing
to reform and simplify our tax system and ensure that
windfall profits are taxed fairly.”
On the need for a review of the OBR,
Paul said:
“The TUC has consistently called for a root and branch
review into the OBR.
“After months of destabilising speculation and the bemusing
timing of the productivity assessment,
the OBR published the
Budget forecast prematurely.
“We cannot continue with the rollercoaster of speculation which
surrounds fiscal events – and we cannot afford an unaccountable
OBR which holds back growth through its conservative
assumptions.”
ENDS
Notes to editors:
- The Treasury's own analysis shows:
-
On average, households in the lowest income deciles in
2028-29 will benefit the most from policy decisions as a
percentage of net income and increases in tax will be
concentrated on the highest income households.
-
On average, all but the richest 10% of households will
benefit as a percentage of income from policy decisions in
2028-29.
-
On average, the bottom and middle of the income distribution
– 60% of all households – will receive more in public
spending than they contribute in tax
-
On average, households in the lowest income decile will
receive over four times as much in public spending than they
pay in tax
-On the TUC's call for a review of the OBR:
https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/unaccountable-obr-risks-being-strait-jacket-growth-warns-tuc-it-calls-modernisation-body
