Breaking down the Budget

At the Budget, the Chancellor Philip Hammond unveiled policies to help with housing, the NHS and Brexit, but there was no mention of changes to university tuition fees.

A new discounted railcard for those aged 26-30 was also announced, in an effort to reduce the cost of living for younger people, which has seen renewed focus since the general election, when only 22% of under-30s voted for the Conservatives.

The biggest policy was the plan to build 300,000 homes a year to deal with the short-age of housing supply. £15.3 billion of new financial support will be used by the government to buy land to build more homes, and to implement the infrastructure support for new developments.

Changes will also be made to the current planning system to encourage better use of land in urban areas, and the government has pledged to create five new garden towns.

Another popular proposal was the plan to abolish Stamp Duty Land Tax on homes under £300,000 for first-time buyers, which will remove Stamp Duty payments completely for 80% of first-time buyers in total, in an attempt to boost home ownership.

It will be the 2060s before Britain’s national debt falls back to pre-financial crisis levels.

However, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) warned that this is likely to push up house prices slightly, and would have a minimal effect on property sales.

The Chancellor also promised £2.8 billion towards improving NHS A&E performance, as well as £3.5 billion for upgrading existing NHS buildings and improving care. In response, the NHS said that the extra funding is not enough and care will have to be rationed, while the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) highlighted the pressure the NHS still faces from the growing and ageing population.

An extra £3 billion would be set aside to prepare for Brexit, or what anti-Brexiteers have termed the ‘Brexit black hole’, including support for the border control services, setting up the new immigration system and building new trading agreements.

Despite the circulation of some newspaper reports in September, which claimed that Mr Hammond was considering cutting universities tuition fees from £9,250 to £7,500, they were left unchanged.

As announced last month at the Conservative Party Conference, tuition fees will be frozen next year, and the income threshold at which fees have to be re-paid will rise from £21,000 to £25,000.

This was a missed opportunity to address the serious problems in our society affecting our area, not least the housing crisis.
Matt Western, MP

Overall, the economic outlook for the next five years was downgraded, with the economy expected to expand by only 1.4% on average. Public borrowing figures improved for the short term, but worsened for the longer-term.

The IFS warned that, based on these new forecasts, workers face two “lost decades” without earnings growth, and it will be the 2060s before Britain’s national debt falls back to pre-financial crisis levels.

Matt Western, MP for Warwick and Leamington, said: “Whilst I welcomed many measures, this was a missed opportunity to address the serious problems in our society affecting our area, not least the housing crisis. In Warwick and Leamington, average house prices have increased by nearly £100,000 in the last seven years. This situation has been caused because the Government hasn’t encouraged enough house building.”

Western continued: “Tory Ministers have built fewer homes than at any time since the 1920s and their flagship starter homes programme has failed to deliver a single new home in the past two years, despite promising hundreds of thousands to be built each year.

There is a real housing crisis locally and we need to help people here in Warwick and Leamington and to address the homelessness on our streets. I am committed to solving this problem.”