Spring Budget 2025: It could be tough on your wallet

National World - LocalTV

With warnings of spending cuts and limited room for giveaways, the UK’s spring budget is expected to bring more pain than relief. Here’s what to expect.

Transcript

00:00There is no doubt that this is going to be a sort of very significant spring budget.

00:04And of course, traditionally, of course, it was always in the spring or the budget was

00:08once a year.

00:09Now, of course, we have the autumn statement.

00:11But this one in particular is the sort of first time that we're really going to sort

00:14of hear what the sort of the future is going to be.

00:17I mean, we had a sort of an awesome sort of statement from Rachel Rees.

00:20This is now going to set the agenda in terms of departmental spending.

00:25And that's significant because there is something that the so-called black hole that's got to

00:29be filled and all sorts of other problems.

00:31And Labour, if they thought they'd inherited sort of a pretty big problem, it's getting

00:36worse literally by the day.

00:38So it begs the question, where is the extra money going to come from in filling the sort

00:43of the holes and also the sort of the extra requirements are now needed for the defence

00:46spending and a whole lot of other issues, notwithstanding, of course, the sort of the

00:51promises that were made during the sort of the election of we're going to have a much

00:54better NHS.

00:56So, you know, we're told we're not going to sort of have tax rises.

00:59Therefore, of course, the money is going to have to come from somewhere.

01:02And one thing I can confidently predict, but hey, I'm willing to be proved wrong, is the

01:07sort of the so-called threshold on certain paying taxes will be extended.

01:11It's due to end in a couple of years time.

01:13That will probably go on to sort of 2030, which takes us beyond the sort of the next

01:17general election.

01:18So, yeah, undoubtedly, that will sort of drag more people into paying tax, both at the sort

01:22of the lower level of 12,750 and the higher level, which is just a sort of shade over

01:26sort of £50,000.

01:27So, yeah, we get poor as a consequence because, as we know, inflation is still sort of, you

01:34know, 2, 3 percent and we're sort of told it's going up again.

01:38Our wages are sort of not sort of holding sort of, they're not sort of keeping up with

01:44it.

01:45Therefore, of course, undoubtedly sort of the pound in our pocket is shrinking.

01:48Meanwhile, proposed benefit reforms reflect an emphasis on transitioning people from benefits

01:54to employment.

01:55However, achieving this goal effectively depends heavily on suitable job availability and targeted

02:01support measures.

02:03The current government probably feel, of course, that they're in the sort of the perfect storm

02:06at the moment.

02:07And indeed, the sort of the big difficulty is unless you can produce sort of the benefit

02:11that people are going to feel in their pocket and as a consequence of better services in

02:16the next three years that, of course, we're going to be going into the next general election

02:20cycle and, of course, the sort of the opinion polls, certainly at the moment, don't look

02:23good.

02:24So the current government needs sort of something to sort of make people sort of feel that they're

02:28going to vote for Labour again.

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