The chancellor promised a Budget that would give families “breathing space”. After four years of a cost of living crisis, preceded by a pandemic and a decade of austerity, women needed far more than that. What we got was a Budget of small measures and incremental tweaks: a “picky bits” Budget, complete with a record number of policy announcements, but little sign of a coherent plan to tackle the economic pressures bearing down on women.

Women are still bearing the brunt of the cost of living crisis. Because women earn less than men on average, and continue to carry out around 50% more unpaid care and domestic work, they have less financial resilience when prices rise. More of their income is already spent on essentials, leaving less room to absorb higher costs.

Earlier this year, debt charity StepChange reported that 71% of its clients with energy arrears were women. Single-parent families, the vast majority headed by women, have energy arrears at three times the national average. With interest rates expected to rise again, the cost of servicing those debts will only increase.

Against that backdrop, action on household bills was particularly important. The Chancellor’s package on energy costs – the removal of VAT on energy bills and standing charges on gas bills, and a £100 council tax rebate – will undoubtedly help shield many from even steeper energy bills.

Yet a closer look reveals that the support is not particularly well targeted. According to the Resolution Foundation, higher-income households will benefit almost as much in cash terms as lower-income households. At a time when public finances remain tight, the government should have provided more meaningful support to those struggling most, rather than offering modest help to millions.

Housing is perhaps the clearest example of a missed opportunity.

The Chancellor announced several measures to help people onto the housing ladder. But for many women, the pressing question is how to pay next month’s rent. Our analysis showed that women now spend an average of 57% of their earnings on private rent, compared with 41% for men. For many, housing costs have become the single biggest pressure on household budgets.

That is why the decision not to unfreeze Local Housing Allowance (LHA) is so disappointing. More than 900,000 low-income private renting families now face a gap between the housing support they receive and the rent they are expected to pay.

While additional funding to tackle rough sleeping is welcome, preventing homelessness is every bit as important as responding to it. Single mums already make up the majority of statutory homeless families. But keeping housing benefits frozen will put more families at risk of losing their home.

While the Chancellor did say extending paternity pay to self-employed fathers was a ‘downpayment’ on wider reforms to parental leave, he also needed to address the inadequacy of maternity pay. At less than half the minimum wage, it continues to put many mothers under severe financial pressure. Our analysis has shown that improving maternity pay would put more than £1bn in families’ pockets and deliver social and economic gains.

This highlights a wider persistent blind spot in British economic policymaking: the tendency to overlook the social infrastructure that makes economic participation possible. Investment in care, education and local government services is too often treated as secondary to traditional physical infrastructure spending. That comes at a significant cost. We estimate that the UK loses £113 billion in economic output because women’s skills and labour are underutilised. If the Chancellor wants to unlock growth in every postcode and boost living standards across the UK, women must be at the heart of economic policy.

And while a new fund to tackle misogyny is welcome, £5 million a year for three years is a drop in the ocean. It is, notably, just half the amount allocated to a single new parkway station in Cardiff. Violence against women and girls is a national emergency, and it needs to be treated as such. 1 in 4 women in England and Wales will experience domestic abuse in her lifetime and one woman is killed by an ex/partner every five days. 

The biggest question left unanswered at the dispatch box was what will happen to the spending envelopes for most departments including those covering justice, education and local government. While health and defence absorb the vast majority of spending growth, other departments face growing pressure on their existing budgets from inflation and rising costs. The Chancellor’s promise of efficiency savings may reassure the Treasury, but it will raise concerns for those who remember how similar language paved the way for austerity. Cutting waste is one thing; asking overstretched services to do more with less is another. Women are likely to bear the consequences most acutely, both as the majority of users of public services and as the majority of the workforce that delivers them. When public services are stretched beyond capacity, women are often the first to fill the gaps.

The forthcoming spending review is an opportunity to address current shortfalls, but without commitment to spending increases, we are looking at real-terms cuts. That is why it is disappointing that more ambitious revenue raising measures were left on the table. Doubling the bank levy was a welcome step and a recognition that sectors which have benefited from higher interest rates should contribute more. But the increase is temporary and remains below previous levels. Similarly, not raising capital gains tax rates to align with income tax rates is a huge missed opportunity to bring in much-needed tax revenue.

No one expected this Budget to dismantle 40 years of neoliberalism overnight. But it could have started shifting priorities.

So, while this Budget may have offered some breathing space, it did not deliver a convincing answer to the question of how women’s living standards will improve over the long term.

The Women’s Budget group is a feminist economics think tank that raises awareness of and provides evidence for a gender equal economy. We put feminism into economics and economics into feminism. www.wbg.org.uk 

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But he just has. Trump has just clarified that his true affinity lies, not with protecting Western democracy, but with Putin, the world’s leading strongman “criminal” and “thug”. ‘Melodramatists’ who, along with Mary Trump, spotted this years ago, feel grimly vindicated. 

Hearing Zelensky quietly acknowledging Trump’s alignment with Putin is heartbreaking. It’s also a historic moment in which we are finally cut loose from ‘the big deception’.

Flouting the Graham Act, Trump has relaxed sanctions on Russia and forged a diesel deal. He has also authorised delays to Ukraine’s supplies of patriot missiles, and is planning joint nuclear-powered data centres with Russia. He has defined Zelensky as the aggressor and punished Ukraine by playing with the Starshield surveillance flip-switch. When it’s off, the Ukrainian military fly blind, with devastating consequences for Ukraine’s citizens.

Russia’s mission to undermine Europe is long-standing. But it now looks clear that the White House plans to join the venture to replace the European liberal, rules-based order with ethno-nationalist, Christo-fascist, white supremacism. 

The midterms

In this context, the US midterm election is a two-act play (on 3 November and 3 January) representing the battle over liberal democracy. Trump has fallen from grace but still has numerous levers (including delaying election court cases and calling a state of emergency) to prevent a just result. And, since he has stuffed the Supreme Court with Republicans, we cannot be certain how the court will respond. 

If Trump succeeds in barring elected Democrats from being seated on 3 January, his mission alignment with Putin will place Europe and other middle powers under new pressure and send a deep, corrosive chill through the Western rules-based order. Europe will want to hasten its independence from the US, and strengthen military and economic cooperation, internally, and with sympathetic nations like Canada. But European military self-sufficiency alone is predicted to take 25 years and cost $1tn. 

Meanwhile, Russia could become a US proxy – an attack weapon against Europe which allows the US to maintain distance and continue fudging its NATO commitments. With US sanctions lifted, Russia is in a stronger position to attack countries beyond Ukraine. This aggression would unify Europe but also generate division around the crippling costs of defence in deeply cash-strapped countries. 

Europe is already embattled. Far-right parties are poised to take France, Spain and key parts of Germany. The mission to undermine Europe is under way. If Trump steals the midterms, European pro-Russia countries, factions and parties wanting protection are likely to step up their collusion with Russia in challenging ‘the corrupt West’. So, Europe could become even more vulnerable to internal extreme right, fascist take-overs.

We hope, but can’t assume, that Europe will remain united against an emboldened Russia that’s bolstered by backdoor US funding and propaganda assistance. Nor is Trump’s Russia alignment a fanboy quirk. If in doubt, listen to presidential wannabies, JD Vance and Marco Rubio, delivering menacing ‘civilizational erasure’ attacks on Europe in recent speeches.

Trump stealing the midterms may quicken the spread of fascism in Europe and impede the wider existential fight to preserve democracy. 

The perfect moment

Trump may have chosen this moment to abandon his thin veneer of loyalty to the rules-based order because his midterm polling is terrible. What better time to wrap oneself vicariously in the strength of a mafia strongman?

But it’s also a moment of unrest fomenting across Europe, that’s ripe for exploitation. Citizens of France, Spain, Albania, Italy, and Portugal are pushing back against neoliberalism’s broken promises (on housing, public services, living costs, and education). Feelings of anger and betrayal over governmental failure to deliver are spreading like summer wildfires, breeding riots and receptivity to the strongman solutions of fascism in equal measure.

The neoliberal ethos appears to be creaking under the weight of its own avarice, with the pernicious role of the super-wealthy becoming increasingly clear. Oligarchs, notably tech giants, are buying ideologies, governments and elections in order to block regulation and protect their assets against fair distributions of wealth. By aligning with fascist strongmen they seek to prevent democratic values from obstructing their financial interests. In this regard, Trump is just a predictable consequence, a sad puppet, of wider ideological forces. 

Fascist noise and voting from experience

We cannot know how US events will unfold between 3 November 2026 and 3 January 2027. But this week’s remarkable election results from Serbia and Brazil give pause for thought. Against the odds, they followed Hungary’s earlier achievement and voted in progressive democratic leaders. Brazil’s election, for one, echoes America’s struggles – Lula’s win might have been considerably larger had his Trumpesque opponent, Flavio Bolsonaro, not meddled with the progressive vote (by, for example, halting buses to polling stations).

But there’s one pattern here that seems clear. On the one hand, European countries such Germany, Italy, France and Spain are courting extreme right parties because many of their citizens, especially the younger demographic, have no first-hand experience of fascism in living memory. They direct their hostilities instead to their incumbent leaders, the neoliberal ‘centrists’ (Macron, Merz, Sanchez, and the increasingly centrist Meloni) whose low growth, high public debt economies have crippled public trust.

By contrast, the citizens of Brazil, Serbia and Hungary have had recent experience of corrupt right-wing populist governments and extreme right dictatorships. They understand the painful consequences of falling for the remedies of these spin doctors. The US is on the same trajectory, with recognition gradually dawning over the midterms. 

And yet citizens seem to have difficulty extrapolating from the experience of other countries to their own. The US is an insular nation. So, perhaps we wouldn’t expect it to look outwards to the uncomfortable parity between its own Republican administration and the governance of other countries? But why aren’t those European countries currently toying with fascism learning from the ruinous experiences of Hungary and Brazil? 

The loud noise of propaganda and social discontent is difficult to escape. Also, fascism, as Melanie Klein notes, isn’t static; it’s a dynamic spiral which evolves to match the societies in which it occurs. Its latest iteration arrived by stealth because, contra the 1930s, modern societies disguise it better. We have algorithms instead of marching boots, bot propaganda farms instead of Nazi rallies, and predominantly right-wing press classified as ‘impartial’. Escaping the cunning of modern fascism is not straightforward.

A modern monster

Yet, each fascist phase, despite its changing historical face, has a shared feature. It is an expression of our ‘worst version of ourselves’. Matt D’Ancona 

“We are a demon-haunted species, striving to embrace the better angels of our nature” (Matt D’Ancona).

Trump, as a ‘demonic worst version of ourselves’ may be US fascism’s undoing. 

His recent abominations have tested even MAGA loyalty. Half-empty Trump rallies are testimony to the red lines being drawn against a leader who supported the live streaming of an execution, who shared a video, against the parents’ express wishes, of their mentally ill son being killed by a tiger, then mocked the event with his own AI version. America is finally stalling over a man who has violated the ‘America First’ ideal with flagrant expansionism and aggression (Venezuela, Greenland, Iran), who advocated “obliterating Iran”, who betrayed Ukraine, and who has littered the US with data centres and detention camps. 

To be candid, these actions may have appalled US voters less if the price of oil was lower. Let’s just be grateful for the co-incidence of high oil prices and Trump’s moral travesties. 

But Trump’s demonic extremism ultimately makes him a progressive asset. He has inadvertently fast-tracked the corruption and hollowness of neoliberalism and its failures. Symbolically, he’s an incarnation of ‘the thing in the raw’ – stripped of the ‘good chaps’ niceties, the pretend deference to the rules, and cod moral thinking, which together masked the system’s real incentives and successfully conned citizens into viewing it as the only and best way forward.

Now the world is seeing the bare-faced monster in all its glory. Trump has done us the favour of comprehensively removing the gloss – accelerating the truth by standing as a naked, ugly symbol of where unfettered neoliberalism ultimately leads – to world domination by an army of glitzy, shallow, dangerous, insane, uncontrolled menaces.

Like Francis Bacon’s ‘Pope’, he is screaming at us that change is now unavoidable if we want to survive.

Cliff-edge

America has repeated Klein’s nightmare spiral of fascism with ‘evil chaps’ now mocking their ‘good chaps’ theory of governance. Yet, despite the grip and creep of fascism, we have reasons for optimism – citizens can learn from experience, fascism can overreach and expose itself. 

As we barrel towards the midterms, we are by-standers waiting to see if the outcome will strengthen or undermine Europe and the international rules-based order. We are also observing a momentous symbolic power struggle between progressive liberal values and their opponents.

If the Republicans fail to win the House and even the Senate, then in the run-up to the new legislative session on 3 January 2027, Trump’s backers will do their utmost to manoeuvre the Supreme Court towards a swamp of legal grey areas. At this point, the fate of US and European democracy will be down to the wire, potentially hanging on whether Republican Justices of the Court listen to the better angels of their nature, stand their ground, and resist huge pressure to make partisan verdicts. The world’s eyes will be on them.

Image credit: Gage Skidmore – Creative Commons

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Chancellor John Healey has delivered his first budget statement as he seeks to reset the UK economy. Amidst trade and military wars, there is an urgent need to make the economy and households more resilient.

Successive governments have sought to increase economic growth but the economy remains sluggish. It is expected to grow by about 1.2% in 2026. One of the reasons is that people lack good purchasing power. Some 25.3m people (37.5% of the population) live below the Minimum Income Standard. Their ability to fuel economic growth is also hampered by regressive tax system. The poorest 20% pay a higher proportion of their income in direct and indirect taxes than the richest 20%.

For over 30 years the UK’s investment in productive assets has been low. As a percentage of GDP, it is the lowest among G7 countries . It has ranked at or near the bottom of the OECD investment league. Manufacturing sector has propelled economic growth in China and elsewhere. However, the UK manufacturing sector has shrunk from 30.1% of economic output (gross value added) in 1970 to 8.3% in 2026. Infrastructure woes are all too evident in potholed roads, crumbling schools, NHS queues and universities in crisis.

Neoliberal economics has squeezed households and failed to deliver beneficial economic growth.  Redistribution of wealth and investment are key requirements. However, the Chancellor’s ability to carve a new path is severely constrained by self-imposed constraints. These include subservience to fiscal rules which limit government borrowing, and Labour’s 2024 election manifesto pledge to not increase national insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of income tax, VAT, and corporate tax rate. In addition, successive governments have been keen to appease corporations and the super-rich.

Against, the above background, the budget is disappointing.

The Budget

Corporations will be pleased. Water companies won’t be nationalised. There is no windfall tax on energy companies and no curbs on profiteering which is pushing millions into poverty.

The increase in surcharge on bank profits from 3% to 6% is less than the 8% expected hike. Over the next 15 months a total of £1.5bn is expected to be raised. There is an increase in machine games duty from 20% to 25% and could raise about £720m. The gambling industry was expecting the increase to 40%. Around £2bn will be raised from additional taxes on landlords and rental income. There are no rent controls or other measures to prevent the rise to be passed to tenants.

Redistribution is mostly absent and the super-rich remain largely unscathed. Wages will continue to be taxed at marginal rates of 20%-45%. Earners will also pay national insurance. Capital gains accruing to less than 1% of the population will continue to be taxed at 18% to 24%. Dividends, mostly accruing to the richest, will continue to be taxed at marginal rates of 10.75% to 39.35%. The Chancellor chose not to align the dividend and capital gains tax rates with wages, preferring to tax labour at higher rates than return on wealth. A new Founders’ Relief offers a 10% rate on life time capital gains of up to £10m. The tax avoidance industry must be salivating at how it can exploit this.

The biggest tax rise on households is through continuation of the freeze on income tax thresholds. The personal allowance was frozen at £12,570 in 2021. If it had risen in line with inflation, then for the current tax year it would have been £16,070. Due to the freeze, a minimum wage earner is paying additional £980 in income tax and national insurance in 2026-27. Assuming an inflation rate of 3.5%, the personal allowance for 2027-28 should be £16,632. However, because of the freeze someone on minimum wage will pay additional £1,137 in income tax and national insurance in 2027-28.  This is the cost of appeasing the rich.

Due to the freeze, millions more would become liable to pay income tax. One such group is pensioners. The state pension is due to rise by 3.9% from April 2027. The full post-2016 state pension, received by a small number of pensioners, will be £13,036.40, which is above the personal allowance of £12,570. The government has announced that pensioners with income of £13,036 (state pension plus other income) there would be a new Pension Tax Allowance i.e. pensioners will not pay income tax, a concession worth up to £94. To prevent a cliff-edge, for pensioners with income between £13,037 and £13,319 there would be a taper. For every £3 of income above £13,036, Pension Tax Allowance will be reduced by £1. The net result is that pensioners with incomes between £13,036 and £13,319 will effectively be paying tax at a marginal rate of 53%. 

This is complicated and divisive. A worker with income of £13,036 would pay income tax and national insurance. It would have been far better to increase the personal allowance for everyone.

Risk-averse individuals tend to put their savings in banks and building societies, the resulting interest income is taxable. £1,000 of interest is tax free for basic rate taxpayers. The limit is £500 for higher and additional rate taxpayers. After that and the £12,570 personal allowance, the amounts are taxable at the appropriate marginal rates. That is set to change. From next April, a 2% extra tax will be levied to interest income. Form April 2028, this will rise by another 2% i.e. there will be 4% additional income tax on savings income. So, a basic rate taxpayer will pay 24% income tax on taxable interest income, higher rate taxpayers will be taxed at 44% and additional rate taxpayers at 49%. This is expected to raise around £2.4bn by 2031-32. Perhaps, the change is intended to encourage people to put savings into ISA accounts. Nevertheless, many don’t want their cash tied for longer periods. Meanwhile dividends will be taxed at rates between 10.75% and 39.35%, capital gains at 18% to 24%. Is this part of a government plan to push people into gambling on stocks and shares? Why are cash savers penalised?

There is some relief for savers. The chancellor has reinstated the limit of £20,000 on cash ISAs. This will do little for 39% of adults with savings of £1,000 or less.

Form April 2027, the headline rate of the national minimum wage for workers age 21 or over will increase by 3.9% to £13.21 per hour. The acceleration of wage rate for younger workers towards £13.21 per hour has been halted even though they pay full rent, food, travel and other costs, and the output of their labour is not sold at a discount.

There is some relief for households in the form of £100 energy bill discount for people living in homes in council tax band A to D. Gas standing charge would be absorbed into the main unit price, which would help light users of energy. The average household bill is expected to rise by 16%-27% in January, adding £276 to £469 to the cost. The Chancellor is looking at the energy contracts, pricing and possibilities of moving levies out of bills on to general taxation.

The Chancellor has provided extra £1.5bn for the Social and Affordable Housing Programme to build 10,000 new home skin England, taking the council housing commitment to £40bn.  Some 1.3m households are waiting for a social home. Successive government have failed to hit housebuilding targets as the UK lacks the infrastructure to provide materials and skilled labour.

£190m extra is provided to NHS England to manage the winter pressures. Another £100m is provided to accelerate the adoption of robotically assisted surgery. It will do little to reduce the backlog of 7.37m hospital appointments. There is a £17.3bn maintenance backlog, including £3.7bn of work classified as “high risk”. The NHS budget is also being squeezed by the deal with the US on drug pricing that will strip £44.7bn out of the NHS budget between now and 2036.

Reform of business rates would be welcomed by small businesses, but they will continue to be buffeted by high energy and water costs, poor infrastructure and low consumer purchasing power.

The government continues to guarantee corporate profits. The Chancellor said “we will expand our defence industrial base by getting the maximum amount of private investment into defence, including through public private partnerships”. This confirms a deeper role of private finance initiative (PFI) now rebranded as public private partnerships. For PFI every £1 of private investment resulted in £6 payment from the public purse. Such indulgence is the inevitable result of fiscal rules which constrain direct state investment.

The budget is a missed opportunity for the government to loosen the shackles of neoliberalism. Corporations and the super-rich have been appeased. The spending power of most households will be further eroded. Regressive tax policies continue to penalise workers. This does not provide a good basis for fuelling economic growth. Within the neoliberal logic, the forthcoming spending, Milburn and Timms Reviews are expected to herald cuts. Maybe the new Chancellor is saving good news for households until 2028/29, just before the next general election. 

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A budget is many things. It is an economic blueprint and tax policy document yes, but it is also a signal of Government priorities and a shout-out to the causes it believes in.

From the pre-budget whispers I’m hearing, the main signal seems to be “don’t rock the boat!”. Tinkering around the edges with a small tax on banks here, a tax on online marketplaces there, a small giveaway to pensioners, and some measures to tackle the cost of living.

The ‘everyday fixes’ expected in the budget include measures such as the removal of import tariffs on gherkins. Cheaper gherkins are all well and good, but do not address the major structural problems in our country.

It contrasts with the bold rhetoric of the Prime Minister in his first few months in office. Proportional Representation, the end of the triple lock, a new deal with Europe, with free Movement and maybe even rejoining on the cards.

Biggest of all, he has promised a National Care Service. As Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, I have shouted loudly for action on Social Care.

The costs of inaction are enormous; unpaid carers under enormous strain to the extent they are
unable to hold onto their jobs, delayed discharges costing the NHS a fortune, and millions simply not having their needs met. But warm words alone aren’t going to cut it.

Like so many of Burnham’s promises, it is planned after the next election. Why
wait 3 years, why not take action now?

And some things really can’t wait at all – young people being top of that list. It is worth putting yourself in the shoes of someone who is in their early twenties. At the pointy end of school when Covid hit, they suffered through the uncertainties of GCSEs and A-Levels under lockdown. University places, apprenticeship and employment opportunities were snatched away at the hands of an unfair, opaque, and systematically biased algorithm.

For those who went to university, what should have been some of the best years of their lives were reduced to zoom lectures and confinement to the bubble of their flat. Isolated, dealing with the toxicity of social media without the escape normally available.

Now, just emerging blinking into the job market, they are hit with a Government made crisis, between the Tories botched Brexit deal to the Reeves budget that hiked National Insurance contributions small businesses just don’t have the headroom to offer those precious first jobs anymore. Where is the future which was promised to them by their elders for getting good grades and working hard?

Many are burdened with student loans which are manifestly unfair, with spiralling debts, excessive interest rates and frozen repayment thresholds. We should be lowering the monthly payments, increasing repayment thresholds, and supporting public service workers and disadvantaged students who desperately need relief. 

It is no wonder that the mental health of our young people is suffering. The Health and Social Care Committee’s current inquiry is examining mental health support and services provided in education and community settings. The picture is bleak. 

Waiting times are so high that in some cases with a years-long wait list the service may as well not exist. The severity of needs is continuing to rise, and a large proportion of people never receive the help they need. 

What is so frustrating is that I have seen best practice which shows that it does not have to be this way. In the East Midlands, one CAMHS service has reduced referral wait times to less than five days. Early Support Hubs such as the one I visited in Devon, with a walk-in, holistic service for young people’s mental health have made a huge difference to young people. But the Government drags its feet over funding the limited number that exist every year. 

Best practice should instead be rolled out nationwide.  This would require the Government to look at long term benefits, rather than short term balance sheets. For young people who contact me, it is often the long term that really concerns them. 

The destructive and remorseless juggernaut of climate change, the effects of which are being felt ever more keenly. The worry over job prospects in a world being overtaken by AI. A world that feels less safe, and less secure every day. 

To tackle these require long term thinking. Investment in services such as those Early Support Hubs, whose benefits won’t be felt tomorrow, or even in five years time, but in the long run we know that it will make all the difference in the world. 

I challenge the Chancellor to do today what very few Governments have the courage to do. Avoid the short-term sugar rush of fleeting measures that look good in a newspaper. Instead, think long-term.

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Compared to last year, this Budget season has been remarkably quiet – dozens upon dozens of floated tax policies replaced with almost deafening silence, save Chancellor Healey’s ruling out of Capital Gains Tax equalisation (despite this being called for by large swathes of his own party, leading economists and investors themselves). At the same time, we now have a Prime Minister with vast ambitions compared to his predecessor – ending 40 years of Neoliberalism, creating a National Care Service, investment and growth in every postcode.

To raise the funds needed to turn these words to action and tackle the wealth inequality gripping this country, the Government must use this week’s Budget to tax extreme wealth and corporations profiting off a cost of living crisis. This will require structural tax reform, which means going much further than simply reversing a cut to the banking surcharge imposed under former Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. 

Nigel Lawson equalised Capital Gains Tax with Income Tax rates, rightly understanding that there was no moral or economic reason for different kinds of income to be taxed differently. Healey must look at this option, alongside applying employee NICs to income from wealth and partnerships, following the same logic – equal treatment of income regardless of source. These two measures would raise £19.7bn and £6.1bn respectively by the end of the parliament – more than enough to fully fund a National Care Service, free at point of use (£18.5bn), as well as promoting economic growth by reducing distortions in the tax system. 

Importantly for a government that needs to build unity across the factions of the Labour Party and the broader progressive side of politics; CGT equalisation is backed by both the centre Growth Group, the Soft Left Tribune Group, the Socialist Campaign Group and many Liberal Democrats – this can unlock billions in revenue, promote growth and unite the Labour Party – which has been wracked by division since coming to power. 

Healey must also get our tax system and administration in order. We spend more than £200bn a year on tax reliefs, many of which like the Patent Box are unjustified giveaways to global multinationals, and have a £60bn tax gap – the difference between what HMRC should be collecting and what it actually receives. 

By getting our leaky sieve of a tax system in order, and investing in HMRC capacity and powers over the remainder of the parliament, the government would be in position to implement an annual wealth tax of 2% on those with more than £10m in assets, raising over £24bn a year – even accounting for any behaviour responses. Whilst not possible at this Budget, this would be achievable within 3 years – in time for the next General Election.  

Collectively, these measures could raise upwards of £70bn a year – enough to fully fund a National Care Service, build 100,000 council houses a year, restore central government funding to local government back to 2010 levels, fully fund sure start, fill the core schools funding gap, introduce free school meals for all pupils, and fund a cost-of-living package, with several billion left to spare. 

Burnham came into No10 with big promises about how he’d do things differently, to reset Britain and end neoliberalism. And the scale of the problem is widespread – from the cost of living crisis to profiteering in almost every aspect of our lives. So this Budget can’t be about half measures or poster campaigns to tackle minor annoyances. This has to be a moment that kickstarts a rewiring of the economy and the state. Failing to deliver this will spell trouble and could quickly deflate Burnham’s bounce.

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Before it’s even happened, this week’s Budget is being labelled low-key and boring. After three months of big promises under Andy Burnham’s new leadership, the mood around the country’s biggest fiscal event feels remarkably flat. 

Now is not the time to slow down. There is no doubt that people and small businesses need breathing space from the cost-of-living crisis and I would welcome a Budget that delivers on that – but crumbs of support are not going to fix this country long-term. If the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are serious about giving people a better future, they need our country to be built on a fair, thriving and sustainable economy, with a tax system that makes sure those who can most afford to, pay their fair share. But right now taxes are the opposite of this, asking too much of small businesses and working people, and too little of the very richest, like me.

Taxing wealth properly isn’t radical or even controversial, in fact, it is widely supported. Three quarters of UK millionaires polled said that to ensure the UK is a place they are proud to live in, they would be willing to pay more tax. And 75% of the public support a 2% tax on wealth over £10 million.

We should all feel hope and pride about the country we live in. But when income from work is taxed higher than income from wealth, it’s no wonder the public feel ripped off. The Chancellor has the opportunity to unlock an economy that works for everybody, by delivering on the Prime Minister’s pledge to draw a line under trickle down economics once and for all. 

Equalising Capital Gains Tax with Income Tax and closing loopholes should be step one. Not only would it level the playing field, by taxing wealth like work, this reform would raise £19.7bn for our country by 2029-30 according to CenTax’s latest estimate. The Chancellor should also forge a clear pathway towards a 2% annual wealth tax on assets over £10 million, raising around £24 billion a year and affecting only the very wealthiest 0.04% of the UK’s population. 

This is about so much more than just raising revenues – it’s about tackling the deep-rooted inequality which is holding this country back and building a more equal future for everyone. 

The Prime Minister knows the tax system is broken – and has said so himself. Almost 12 months ago, ahead of the 2025 Autumn Budget, Patriotic Millionaires UK toured the country on our “tax us the super-rich” campaign bus, urging the Chancellor to tax our wealth. When we stopped in Manchester, Andy Burnham, then Mayor of Greater Manchester, came to meet us. In an interview, he told us: “In this country we overtax people’s work and we undertax wealth.” Now he leads our country and has the power to fix it. That fix to our economy should start this week, with this Budget.

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The 1997 Labour government brought about something of a golden age in public support for the arts. Then culture secretary Chris Smith MP, with the help of a young special adviser called Andy Burnham, began to increase the Arts Council England’s grants budget substantially every year. It was nearly twice the size when Burnham was himself appointed secretary of state for culture a decade later.

It is often heard among the arts sector today that such a big investment was an anomaly. That our industries were the passive beneficiaries of a period of unprecedented growth, which provided lots of cash for ‘nice to haves’. But now there are too many other priorities and too few resources to consider the arts.

The pessimists have short memories. Chancellor Healey, our eighth in ten years, would do well to ask his new boss in No.10 why it was that he was so committed to investing in the arts in his early political career and what the last Labour government felt our creative industries could contribute. The new prime minister’s reply might address three themes.

First, the arts are a producer of growth, not just a product of it. In 2022, the UK arts sector alone contributed £49billion GVA to our economy. Every creative job generates an additional two jobs in the local area over twenty years. The Society of London Theatre finds that every £1 spent on theatre generates £1.40 in the local economy. Our film and TV workforce attracts £7bn in inward investment and generates £1bn at the UK box office. Creative industry exports are worth £60bn.  A government seeking growth cannot ignore the role that arts and entertainment investment plays in delivering it.

The government is not just seeking growth however, but ‘growth in every post code’. The last Labour government recognised the critical role that the arts could play in driving devolution, through regional creative industries policies, the Regional Development Agencies, screen agencies and Arts Council England. Over the period, the arts became an important medium for the transfer of power and decision-making away from Westminster and national recognition for the full diversity of places and cultures across the UK.

The expansion of strategic authorities today and the inclusion of ‘culture’ within their competencies presents an opportunity to progress this project further. Strategic authorities should have a greater role in coordinating and developing their arts and entertainment economies, drawing Arts Council England grant spending, local government arts funding, support for Culture Priority Places, local jobs plans, and Public Service Broadcasting investment together into a coherent economic framework. One that would generate jobs through increased artistic production and offer more opportunity for local people to see themselves reflected in cultural life. Decent arts provision was once devolution’s forerunner and should now be so again.

Finally, the last Labour government recognised that public support for the arts could help to realise social policy objectives, whether through economic regeneration, tackling social exclusion, strengthening community bonds or fostering diverse local cultures and pride of place. Though the far-right’s recent precipitous rise appears to have plateaued for now, the drivers of their support, and the threat that they pose to our social fabric, have not gone away.  The arts has a role here, in revitalising economically depressed areas, providing a new focus for communities to rally around and offering a chance for all to share in the cultures and experiences of others. This seems more important now than ever.

Each of these themes has been tried and tested by the previous Labour governments in which Andy Burnham served. The academic analyses are already published and the evidence bases built. So next time the chancellor asks colleagues in No.11 why he should prioritise the arts in his budget, perhaps the best person to answer is the man living next door.

Image credit: Simon Dawson / Number 10 – Creative Commons

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The UK economy continues to struggle after the legacy of an incompetent and chaotic Conservative government, which left us in a weak position to deal with global events. Tory and Lib Dem austerity, Boris’ bad Brexit deal and Liz Truss’ disastrous budget all contributed to leaving the UK economy vulnerable to the impact of conflicts across the world and climate change. We welcome the steps that Labour has already announced to help save our shops, tackle the cost of living crisis, help make work pay and reform Universal Credit, but there is still much more to do.

Usdaw members, who are key workers serving their communities, continue to suffer as a result of the cost of living. This is reflected in our most recent cost of living survey results from over 7,500 Usdaw members, highlighting a worrying number of low-income workers relying on unsecured loans to meet the cost of everyday essentials: 1 in 4 have struggled to pay everyday bills in the last 12 months and have had to rely on borrowing. A quarter of this was using unsecured borrowing such as payday loans or buy-now-pay-later services. 59% said financial worries are having an impact on their mental health.

Listening to our members’ very real experiences illustrates the scale of the problem: “We are in debt with essential household bills such as energy costs and council tax. We’re now stuck in a never-ending cycle of not being able to gain control of our debts, despite earning enough on paper, as we’re constantly chasing our tails and so overwhelmed”. “Wages stay the same, yet bills go up, food goes up; it makes it hard to be able to pay bills and for travel to work and then comfortably afford to buy a food shop”. “There’s no cushion. If something happened to my car, how would I get to work? I start at 5:30am and public transport doesn’t run that early. How would I pay to get it fixed? I’d have to spend £20 on a taxi to work knowing in my mind that my 5.5-hour shift has just been cut to 3.5 hours’ worth of pay because I’ve spent £25-£30 on transport. It’s a real worry”.

In the last 12 months, nearly a quarter of Usdaw members have had to cut back on heating or electricity use, as a result of financial pressures. With energy prices rising, we are extremely concerned that this pressure will be exacerbated and more low-income households will be forced to choose between heating or eating. We welcome the government’s action to cut VAT on electricity bills but we believe that this does not go far enough, nor is it sufficiently targeted. The government must put in place support for households facing energy debt and help with bills for those who need it most.

The Employment Rights Act will help make work pay and improve job security if delivered in full, and we will be looking to the chancellor to announce another substantial increase in minimum wage rates to reflect the cost of living and end rip-off youth pay. Usdaw has participated in the government’s review of paid parental leave, to help transform the support working parents receive, and we welcome the expansion of childcare provision delivered by Labour. We are calling for substantial reform of Universal Credit to build on the success of abolishing the two-child limit.

Job security is a key priority for our members. We support the government’s commitment to ‘growth in every postcode’ and the retail sector has a significant role to play in delivering this. We welcome the action the government has already taken in reducing business rates for pubs, clubs and live music venues. Alongside this, Labour has a manifesto commitment to level the playing field between the high street and online giants. So, confirmation from the chancellor that the government will be producing a high streets strategy is welcome, but it is essential that it is linked to the wider industrial strategy, including exempting large physical retail premises from the higher rates multiplier. 

A fairer tax system is needed so that we can rebuild our public services without placing additional burdens on low-paid workers. There is strong public support for the wealthiest paying their fair share of tax. The freezing of thresholds until 2031 brings millions of workers and pensioners into either paying tax for the first time or increasing the amount they pay, putting more strain on low-income households. The government needs to take the impact of this into consideration and look at whether there are alternative ways to raise the much-needed funding for investment in our public services.

Times are too tough for too many and this needs to be a Budget that addresses the very real issues that impact workers. Pay, hours and job security are the real priorities for our members.

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When Andy Burnham became prime minister in July, he said he wanted to give people breathing space. He was right to name the problem.

People are working harder, paying more in tax and getting less in return. For too many families, by the time the bills are paid and the essentials are covered, there is almost nothing left. Nothing for the little things that make life worth living: a pint in the pub with a mate, a takeaway with the kids, a coffee and cake in town, an ice cream on the beach.

None of this is extravagant. It’s normal life, and people who work hard should be able to afford it.

Tomorrow, the government faces its first big test. The budget will show whether that promise of breathing space means something, or whether it was just a good line.

A brutal double whammy

Families are facing rising bills and disappearing support at the same time. Energy costs are going up. So are petrol prices, and so is the cost of eating out.

Between January and March next year, the energy price cap is expected to rise. Fuel duty and rail fares are set to increase, and the Government’s cut to VAT on electricity bills could end.

That is the test. If the chancellor stands by while families are hit with another cost-of-living squeeze, his budget fails, whatever else is in it.

I’m not dismissing the long term. We must get Britain growing again. A stronger economy is how we raise living standards and bring down the cost of essentials like energy, travel, food and rent. But nobody can pay next month’s energy bill with the promise of growth over time. Growth is the long-term answer, but families need a short-term lifeline too.

So our message to the chancellor is simple. Don’t just promise breathing space. Deliver it.

What a ‘Breathing Space Budget’ looks like

The Liberal Democrats are calling for a £14 billion ‘Breathing Space Budget’. Over the next year and a half, it would save households £350 on average. It does three things: it cuts your energy bill, cuts the cost of travel, and cuts the cost of going out.

Energy. We would introduce an Essential Energy Guarantee, cutting average annual electricity and gas bills by £100. There would be additional support for households with children and disabled people, who so often face the toughest choices when the bills land.

Our high streets. We would cut hospitality VAT from 20% to 15% for the same period. That gives pubs, restaurants, and cafés room to keep prices down, protect jobs and stay open. It also makes a meal with the kids, a coffee with a friend, or a pint at the local a little more affordable. Anyone who has watched their local high street decline knows just what’s at stake.

Travel. For an initial three months, we would cut fuel duty by 10p, cut rail fares by 10%, introduce £1 bus fares and cut VAT on kerbside EV charging to 5%. We want public transport to be cheaper and easier to choose. But we also know not everyone has that choice. For millions of people, particularly outside our biggest towns and cities, leaving the car at home simply isn’t an option. They shouldn’t be left out of the help.

Fully funded, and paid for fairly 

The Essential Energy Guarantee would be funded by clawing back excess support handed to monopoly energy operators and using that money to cut household bills instead. 

The hospitality package would be funded by a one-off, time-limited windfall tax on the unexpected and unearned profits of the big banks. 

The emergency travel package would be funded through additional Treasury receipts as petrol prices rise, triggered by Trumpflation. 

A choice to act 

This budget comes down to a choice. The chancellor can stand by while households and businesses are squeezed again, or the government can act. He can cut energy bills, cut the cost of travel, give our high streets a fighting chance, and give people something to look forward to at the end of the month. We’ve shown that it can be done and how to pay for it.

The prime minister promised breathing space. Tomorrow, the chancellor has the chance to deliver it and we Liberal Democrats have shown him how.

Image credit: Simon Dawson / Number 10 – Creative Commons

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This is the cost-of-living Budget. That is the number one issue facing working class people across the country – and this Government needs to find answers.

Energy bills have risen in October and are forecast to rise sharply in January. Inflation has risen to 3.5% and is expected to rise further. Private rents are forecast to increase by 4-5% over the next year and mortgage costs look likely to go up again too.

People can see this tsunami heading towards them and they need a Government that is on their side.

So what should John Healey do on Wednesday? The first thing to do would be to boost pay. The Chancellor is directly responsible for the pay of millions of public sector workers – many of whom have suffered real terms cuts in their incomes since 2010.

You cannot deliver growth in every postcode ifworkers don’t have disposable income. Peopleare cutting back on what they spend in the shops, having a meal out in a restaurant, or a night in the pub because their pay has gone down and their costs have gone up.

PCS commissioned research that proved that increasing the pay of civil servants – especially at the lower end – more than paid for itself in the long run. It does this in three ways:

1. Firstly, a major part of any increase in public sector pay is recouped in higher tax and national insurance payments. There will also be a reduced entitlement to in-work benefits for some workers, saving the Government money.
2. Secondly, lower paid workers have a greater propensity to spend and so, if their pay increases, they spend more in their local economy – boosting local businesses. This money spent in a local community recirculates locally instead of leaking out, and this contributes to economic growth and higher tax revenues.
3. Thirdly, there’s the ratchet effect. A better pay rise in the public sector results in upward pressure in the private sector on pay, as businesses compete for workers. This results in higher tax and national insurance receipts.

The reality is that you cannot deliver a thriving economy without rising real wages. For more than a decade, workers in the public and private sectors have suffered real terms cuts in their incomes, and economic growth has been sluggish.

The academic research we have commissioned demonstrates it clearly. If you boost pay, especially low pay, you grow the economy. That economic growth brings increased tax revenues that outweigh the cost of boosting pay.

So what the Chancellor needs to set out in the Budget is a long-term policy of pay restoration to improve living standards and economic growth.

Boosting household incomes and economic growth are inextricably linked. So the Chancellor should use the Budget to set a new target of increasing disposable incomes for lower and middle earners to help strengthen economic growth, and ask the OBR to report annually on progress.

This would act as a benchmark to measure Government delivery against a far more meaningful measure of economic performance than GDP. It would also act as a guide for future policy interventions, as the OBR report could analyse the pressures on household incomes.

But income only represents one side of the ledger for households. On the other side there is the rising cost-of-living. Recent political history is strewn with the failed careers of short-lived Chancellors and Prime Ministers who didn’t get to grips with this issue.

People are fed up with politicians sitting idly by while they are being ripped by landlords jacking up rent, banks putting up mortgages, and energy and water companies hiking their bills.

When Andy Burnham was Mayor of Greater Manchester he called for a rent freeze and rent controls. Now he is Prime Minister he needs to put that into action, and make clear that profiteering from the British public must come to an end – whether that’s by banks, landlords, energy companies, water companies or supermarkets.

The post-war Churchill government in the early 1950s implemented an excess profits levy in the 1952 Budget under Rab Butler, who told the House of Commons, “we are not prepared to see excessive profits being made”, announcing “it is our intention that an Excess Profits Tax should operate from 1 January of this year”. The Conservative Chancellor declared he was “redistributing public money to those in need”.

If an Excess Profits Levy to fund redistribution was good enough for Churchill’s government, it is good enough for a Labour government today – especially one that is committed to “ending 40 years of neoliberalism” and delivering “growth in every postcode.”

If the Chancellor fails to grip this issue, millions of people face a very tough year and, less importantly, he faces joining the scrapheap of ex-Chancellors who failed to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.

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