What does the Government’s Budget mean for the people of Manchester?

National World - LocalTV

We had a look at some of the big announcements in the new budget to try and break it down in an easy-to-understand way for those who need to know what it means for them.

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to Manchester World, my name's Theo Heusenbeth and today we're going to be

00:02talking about Labour's budget. Rachel Reeves is the Chancellor and she announced this week

00:07how basically the government are going to spend their money over the next couple of months and

00:09we've tried to condense it down into an easy to understand block for you. Now Labour were sort of

00:13cut out by their promise to not borrow money to pay for day-to-day spending and so their options

00:17were to raise taxes or apply cuts to areas such as welfare and public services which is the decision

00:21they made. They had committed to fixing the economy before implementing the more forward-thinking

00:25policies that won them the election so it's easy to understand the frustration amongst those who

00:29wanted a clear quick change. We're going to start though with the changes to welfare with health

00:32related universal credits not being tied to inflation after 2026 meaning it'll remain at

00:37£50 per week from April 2026 until after 2030. Under 22 year olds are now not able to claim

00:43health related universal credits and there's a stricter eligibility test for personal independence

00:48payments. In housing there's been more positive news with estimations suggesting that changes to

00:52the planning system will create a boost of 170,000 houses over the next five years which are positive

00:57signs for Labour's ambitious housing promises which they made when they won the election. There's

01:01also been a boost in defence and the overseas aid budget made necessary by Donald Trump's refusal to

01:06commit the US to defence in Europe anymore and the war in Ukraine obviously being a big issue in

01:10Europeans minds. This is something that's replicated across Europe since the US made their announcement

01:14that they were going to sort of pull away from spending a little bit. Day-to-day spending is set

01:18to fall by £6 billion over the next five years with 400 more HMRC staff to be hired to chase up

01:23wealthy offshore non-compliant taxpayers. It's been a divisive budget and one that's upset a lot

01:27of people who believe that the richest in society are getting away with being able to keep their

01:30wealth while the poorest struggle. Labour are clearly committed to fixing the mess of the

01:34economy but need to be wary of not moving too far from the more left-wing policies that were

01:38promised to voters and that voters were hoping would come with them when they won the election.

01:43That's all for now, follow Manchester World for more.

Category

Transcript

Recommended