The Chancellor announced his Budget last week and I am sure that many of you have questions about exactly how it will impact you. Unfortunately, my first thought is that this Budget will not even touch the sides for most households.

Government Budgets, first and foremost are about choices. Last week the Budget indicated that this government is keeping to its record of making cruel choices that will leave the poorest households even poorer. The only surprise was a permanent £1bn tax cut for the richest 1% of earners, through changes to pensions allowances. High earners with a £2 million pension pot will get a tax cut of more than a quarter of a million pounds when they take their tax-free lump sum.

Our hardworking, nurses, junior doctors, and teachers to name a few have been striking for fair pay and adequate working conditions, yet they have been relentlessly lied to by this government who for months, have held the position that there simply is not enough money to prevent large pay cuts. Yet they found £9 billion for tax cuts for the wealthy. Predictably, it’s not that there’s not enough money, the fact is that this government doesn’t care enough about the workers that hold this country together. Wages are lower now in real terms than they were thirteen years ago, the OBR says that they will fall further this year and are expected to remain below 2008 levels until 2026.

This Budget presented a chance for the government to reverse some of the catastrophic damage done by the revolving door of past unelected Tory PMs and Chancellors. Instead, again we see that they have decided to target people on Universal Credit, by introducing tougher sanctions if claimants haven’t met strict work-search requirements. There is no evidence higher sanctions work, only evidence that they make life considerably harder for those already struggling.

Labour shortages are weakening the economy, I have met with some business owners in my constituency that are desperate for skilled workers to fill job vacancies. The Governments response to this is to push the elderly and sick back into work. These are shameful political choices, exposing complacency with growing poverty, illness, and homelessness.

The Chancellor boasted about the UK avoiding a ‘technical recession’ this year, but the reality is that households across the UK will remain thousands of pounds worse off. I am glad to see that finally households on prepayment metres will be transferred over to the same tariffs as direct debit customers. Primarily, households on low incomes have prepayment meters and it is beyond belief that their tariffs have been higher. Unfortunately, however, if you pay quarterly, by cash or cheque then you are still likely to pay more than others for your domestic energy and this is expected to affect older people who prefer these payment methods. If you find yourself in this position, please contact my office and I will be happy to make enquiries to your energy provider.

The expansion of free childcare in this Budget is not going to start being rolled out until 2024. From the emails in my inbox, speaking with parents at school drop offs, and visiting the team at Citizens Advice Lancaster, the consensus is that the current childcare funding system is pushing people out of work and deeper into poverty. With childcare costs soaring and the current rate of inflation it is astonishing that the childcare element in Universal Credit has been capped at a level set back in 2005, and this is something I questioned ministers about in the house of commons recently. The Chancellor says that working parents of two-year-olds will get 15 hours of free care from April 2024, children from nine months will get 15 hours free childcare from September 2024 and eligible under-5s will get 30 hours free childcare but not until September 2025. This is not going to help lone parent families and working mothers that are in real crisis now. By the time this is forecast to roll out, my expectation is that we will have a newly elected Labour government committed to offering meaningful support to families, securing the highest sustained growth in the G7; that will create good jobs, productivity, and growth across every part of our country.

A lot of the Budget announcements are watered down policies that my party have already called for such as the windfall tax, capping energy bills, prepayment meters, fuel duty, childcare etc. Every success that the Government touts is just a failure they’ve made marginally better. The Energy price cap being fixed at £2500 is not a headlining achievement of the benevolent Tory party – it is nearly double what people paid a year ago. Equally the £200 million for potholes is less impressive when remembering that the Government cut the Highways Maintenance budget by £400 million in 2021.

As ever, if there is anything you want to get in touch with me about, please feel free to email cat.smith.mp@parliament.uk or call me on 01524 566551. I like to hear about the things that matter to you.