Jeremy Hunt’s Budget – just the main points [VIDEO]
My word, that man can waffle!
I’ve tried to distil the main points in Jeremy Hunt’s Budget statement, and it’s still 40 minutes long!
Nevertheless, if you’re looking for anything in particular, you should be able to find it more quickly than by watching the whole thing.
I was live-tweeting on Twitter at the time and those messages may provide extra information to explain what he meant:
UK will not enter a technical recession this year, says #JeremyHunt. Wow. So how much extra money will the UK's poorest have in their pockets, then? #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
#JeremyHunt talks about government work to halve inflation – but we know that the government is not doing any such work at all. Inflation will fall as the causes of the price increases become more than a year old and stop being registered. #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
#JeremyHunt announces funding for #swimmingpool – £63m – capitulating to protest after his prime minister had the National Grid changed, just to heat his own private pool. #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
£100m to support charities. Interesting but how will it be assigned? #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
£10m to prevent suicide. This is good, as Tory policies have driven many to consider it. #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
Here's some waffle about debt falling. Chancellors have been predicting such falls since 2010, and debt has more than doubled in that time. So take it with a pinch of salt! #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
Interesting that #JeremyHunt will bring forward measures against promoters of #taxavoidance schemes. I'll want to see what those measures are and how much he expects them to bring into the Treasury. #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
#JeremyHunt predicts economic growth in every year from 2024 onwards. This is a common claim in Budget statements that also never comes to pass. #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
The investment in the defence budget is worrying. The Tories are trying to prepare us for a war. We should be reluctant to support this. #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
Welcome announcement of more support for veterans – but will it keep ex-servicepeople off the streets? #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
Every £1 invested in IT equipment, plant and machinery will be deducted from businesses' taxes. And what about investment in PEOPLE? #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
Nuclear energy to be expanded. This is dirty energy, of course – not clean; not green. #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
Nuclear power to be classed as "environmentally sustainable". It isn't. We're going to stink up the country with nuclear waste. #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
EDF
— Rich (@Ritch_1) March 15, 2023
Regulations are medicines and medical technologies to be reformed. Is this going to be unethical experimentation? #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
The UK will expand work on Artificial Intelligence. SkyNet, anybody? #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
Employment: people with disability or long-term sickness should be able to work from home, says #JeremyHunt. Work Capability Assessment to be abolished and benefit entitlement unlinked from work. So ppl will be able to work without losing benefit support. Really? #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
People forced to leave work because of musculo-skeletal or mental health conditions will receive support. Why not just increase pay to stop stress and improve safety to prevent physical problems? #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
People on UC looking for work or on low earnings will face stronger sanctions on people failing to meet work search requirements or take up a reasonable job offer. Define reasonable, though. What pay and conditions are acceptable? #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
#JeremyHunt talks about the most significant improvements – in many areas – in a decade. So he's blaming previous governments of which he was a member for failing to improve incrementally over the years. #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
The elephant in the room is pay for the people who are going to do the actual work, and the conditions under which they do that work. I hear nothing in #JeremyHunt's speech to address that issue. People who are well-paid provide better work. #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
Yes, exactly!
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
And let's remember that we're not really looking at incentives. People won't be given a choice, in many cases – they will be forced to do as they're told. #Budget2023
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) March 15, 2023
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My take on the “scrapping of the work capability assessment” after reading the consultation proposal is that WCA won’t be scrapped but will happen only once.
I suspect that the bar will be raised so high that PIP will effectively be scrapped as few will qualify, only for it to be replaced by an “Innovative Private Insurance Scam”.
Why else are they so confident that a single assessment won’t be abused ?