As I predicted here last week, the Budget, set out by the Chancellor on Wednesday, was an Austerity Budget. It was prudent. Yet that is where my foresight ended for modest and reserved it was not.
This Budget was bold. It dared, despite the severe financial constraints, to articulate a vision of a country that aspires to get on and where Government’s role is to help people do just that. This vision of an ‘aspiration nation’, goes straight to the heart of what Conservatives stand for. It is a vision that this Budget makes a reality.
If you want to own a home, get your first job, start a business or save for retirement, it was a good Budget for you. It was a good Budget for those working hard to pay their bills and it was a good Budget for Swindon too.
This Budget has put £700 back into the pockets of over 81,000 Swindon residents and has taken nearly 10,000 of the lowest paid local residents out of income tax altogether. This is because we have met our promise to raise the personal income tax allowance to £10,000 one year early. Nationally, 2.7 million of the lowest paid workers will now pay no income tax and 24 million ordinary working families have had a tax cut.
This Budget has taken 4p off the pint, helping our fantastic local brewery Arkells, our Town’s pubs and bars and crucially, the punters. This is because we have scrapped Gordon Brown’s automatic beer duty hikes that have long hammered our pub industry.
This Budget has saved Swindon families a further 3p on the price of fuel, scrapping September’s planned fuel duty rise. Fuel duty has now been frozen for nearly three and a half years. Thanks to this Government, filling up the average family car is £7 cheaper than under Labour plans, with fuel 59p a gallon cheaper than it would otherwise have been.
This Budget will help the many aspirant families in Swindon get onto the housing ladder. Our Town is full of those who aspire to own their own home but for whom the required deposit is just out of reach. If you can raise a 5% deposit, the Government will put up an additional 20%, meaning that an affordable mortgage is in open to everyone.
This Budget will give working families £1200 towards childcare costs per child. This will make a huge difference to those who aspire to work, but who also aspire to raise a family.
This Budget is on the side of those who want to get on, putting money back into the pockets of ordinary working families. This Budget celebrates aspiration, encourages it and nurtures it. This Budget helps us build a Britain that is prosperous, solvent and free. I wholeheartedly support that vision.
