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22/04/09 : Labour Welcomes "A Budget for Our Times" :
Alistair Darling's budget on Wednesday was attacked by the Tories and savaged by much of the press, but seems to have struck a cord with the people.
Some of the key points:
- Improved capital allowances that will benefit 21,000 businesses across the South East
- A 'top-up' trade credit insurance scheme to help businesses maintain their finances if insurers reduce their cover
- A temporary vehicle scrappage scheme, co-funded with industry, giving consumers £2,000 to scrap a ten-year-old vehicle and replace it with a new one
- Funding for local authorities to build new homes, and help for house-builders to restart stalled housing schemes
- A place in education and training this September to every 16 and 17 year old who wants one
- A new guarantee of a job or training from October for all 18-24 year-olds who have been out of work for 12 months or more
- More funding for JobcentrePlus to help the unemployed (in February they helped 25,000 people across the South East get off JSA)
- " The world's first carbon budget, at a legally binding level of 34 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020, a new level of ambition for UK climate policy
- The world's first carbon budget, at a legally binding level of 34 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020, a new level of ambition for UK climate policy
- A package to improve energy efficiency in 15000 homes; an estimated 500 public buildings, including schools and hospitals; and through an estimated 450 loans to businesses across the South-East, plus up to £500Million investment in Combined Heat & Power schemes
- a £750 million Strategic Investment Fund to support advanced industrial projects of strategic importance, of which a third of the funding will be earmarked for low carbon projects
- An increase of 2.5% in the state pension in April 2010 even if inflation is negative
- Changes to Pension Credit to help pensioners with savings who have been hit by low interest rates (this will help over half a million pensioners across the country)
- Additional Winter Fuel Payments: £100 for households with someone 80+ and £50 for households with someone of 60+
- Increasing Child Tax Credit by £20 above indexation
- From April 2010, an income tax rate of 50% for incomes over £150,000, the income tax personal allowance will be restricted for those with incomes over £100,000 and tax relief on pensions contributions will be restricted for those earning £150,000+, and tapered down until it is 20%
- Changes to alcohol and tobacco duties, and a package of measures which will protect £3 billion of tax receipts a year by 2010-11 from tax evasion and avoidance
This is a budget with an emphasis on jobs, on ensuring we do not waste a generation by condemning them to unemployment, on laying down carbon targets to secure our future, on being fair and supportive to pensioners and to families with children, and on making sure that those best able to do so carry their share of the burden of taking our country out of recession.
It is a budget to which neither the Conservatives nor the Liberal Democrats have offered any alternative.
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