Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch delivered a scathing response to Chancellor John Healey's Budget, branding it "not good enough, not strong enough, not bold enough" and accusing Labour of ducking the country's most urgent issues. Her verdict on the near hour-long speech was simply: "Is that it?"
Welfare and Defence Concerns
The Budget offered scant detail on cutting the UK's soaring welfare bill, while a lukewarm commitment to boosting defence spending prompted accusations that Labour is putting "benefits before bullets." Mr Healey also confirmed a major change to the state pension triple lock from 2030.
Former defence secretary Ben Wallace warned: "Labour are putting benefits before bullets." Outside the Houses of Parliament, campaigners gathered to vent their fury over the proposed triple lock changes.
Tax Burden and Measures
Mr Healey scrapped predecessor Rachel Reeves' plan to cut the annual cash ISA allowance, keeping the tax-free limit at £20,000 for savers of all ages. However, the Budget will still push the tax burden to a peacetime record.
He offered struggling households some relief from soaring energy bills and spared motorists another hike at the pumps. The Budget contained 98 different measures, but analysts said their "value" was the "smallest" on record.
Mr Healey insisted the measures would give families some much-needed "breathing space" as the Iran war sends everyday costs soaring. He told MPs: "This is a Budget for the working people of Britain. It's a Budget for business, big and small. Delivered at a time when global uncertainties and pressures are swirling worldwide and hitting people here in Britain."
Political Reactions
Mrs Badenoch blasted the package, saying: "Next year, under Labour, the tax burden will be the highest in our country's history and our benefits bill is going up by tens of billions of pounds because this Government has put welfare first. We are overspent, over-borrowed, overtaxed and drowning in an out-of-control welfare system."
She added: "Most people in the country listening to his Budget will be thinking to themselves: Is that it? Really, is that it? The Prime Minister came in promising to reverse 40 years of neoliberalism. Instead, we got 4p off gherkins."
Robert Jenrick, Reform UK's economic spokesman, writing exclusively in the Daily Express, declared: "Is that it? A hundred days of Andy Burnham, and this is all he had to offer: a nothing-burger Budget, served up in the middle of a national economic emergency."
Economic Forecasts and Spending
Mr Healey painted a gloomy picture of Britain's finances, blaming the war in the Middle East for driving up prices and borrowing costs. He warned that oil prices had jumped from around $70 a barrel to more than $100, while gas prices had nearly tripled since February.
The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts the Government will spend an extra £14 billion on debt interest this year. Mr Healey said: "Those are the storms we face. We can't wish them away. We must choose the course we steer through them."
The economic watchdog expects the economy to grow by 1.2% this year, but the forecast for GDP was slashed from 1.6% to just 1.0% in 2027, and 1.6% in 2028 and 2029.
Household Support and Business Relief
The centrepiece of the Budget was a £2.6 billion scheme handing £100 directly to households in council tax bands A to D in England this winter. Mr Healey said: "Paid directly into people's bank accounts to help deal with rising energy bills to take the pressure off in the coldest months and see people through to the Spring."
He also extended Labour's temporary removal of VAT from household electricity bills until July next year, a move the Treasury says is worth around £50 a year, and promised to scrap gas standing charges from next year, although some costs could instead be added to the price households pay for each unit of gas. Motorists were handed another reprieve after the Chancellor extended the 5p fuel duty cut until July 2027.
Mr Healey announced an increase in gambling taxes to pay for business rates relief for high street firms, saying it would mean 70,000 businesses would be taken out of paying rates altogether, "meaning half of our shops, restaurants and gyms will now pay no business rates at all".
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the Budget's "raft of fiddly measures" would do little to boost growth and warned it delayed tough decisions. John O'Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "The chancellor has driven the tax burden to another record high to pay for gimmicks and giveaways while sidestepping the ticking fiscal time bomb of runaway benefits spending. Politicians must shake their spending addiction, get a grip on welfare and give hard-working Brits real breathing space by cutting their taxes."
