The reactions are in from Westminster’s wonks on Reeves’ Binfire Budget. They had a head start to prepare them thanks to the OBR leaking it…
The Adam Smith Institute’s head of communications Joanna Marchong said: “Individually, the measures may look modest. But without properly addressing the ballooning welfare bill, missed house building targets, the effect of stealth taxes on workers and our plummeting productivity Britain’s economic stability will continue to be questioned.” Smorgasbord of misery…
TaxPayers’ Alliance CEO John O’Connell added: “The chancellor’s budget benefits bonanza will be paid for by hard working taxpayers through their incomes, pensions, property, savings and beyond. The pettiness of this government and its unquenchable thirst for cash even extends to milkshakes.” Stop the sin taxes…
Pro-growth campaign Britain Remade’s Sam Richards said: “The shambles surrounding the launch of this miserable Budget should not distract from the Government’s abject failure to deliver their number one priority: economic growth.” The OBR downgraded its growth forecast again…
Policy Exchange’s senior research fellow Ben Ramanauskas warned: “This Budget could be even more damaging than the last. These tax hikes will see working people paying more tax, stifle growth, and could raise less revenue than claimed by the Treasury, meaning that the Chancellor would be forced to come back next year with even more tax rises.” She’s just broken her promise to not come back for more…
The Centre for Social Justice blasted the “Buckeroo Budget”, with policy director Joe Shalam saying: “A government with a majority of 169 has set out a Budget penned by its backbenchers. But throwing money at the problem, paid for by a squeeze on the workers and savers of middle England, will eventually cause a kick.”
Left-wing think tank/Labour press arm the Institute for Public Policy Research’s executive director Harry Quilter-Pinner showered praise on the “good calls on gambling tax, taxing income from wealth and work more equally, a tax on high value properties and endi
Budget Man Torsten Bell’s old outfit the Resolution Foundation also briefly welcomed the two-child benefit cap scrap.
Onward’s director Simon Clarke said: “Today’s Budget compounds the damage inflicted a year ago: slower growth and lower productivity alongside higher taxes and more welfare spending.”
Far-left New Economics Foundation‘s CEO Danny Sriskandarajah warns the tax rises won’t improve living standards (true), though campaigns for a wealth tax: “The budget will raise tens of billions in taxes – but apart from a few bright spots like ending the two-child limit, she is so in hock to our broken fiscal framework that most of this will just be used to double the government’s headroom. The chancellor should have recognised this by asking the wealthiest among us to pay what they owe towards our public services, starting with raising capital gains tax to the same rate as income tax.”
The Institute of Directors‘ Anna Leach said: “This Budget does not substantively change the UK’s growth outlook. Public spending is higher, and business investment even lower than before. The scaling back of National Insurance relief on pension contributions – even while the government has launched its Pension Commission – will undermine retirement savings and the very investment pools that we need, as well as heaping further costs on employment.”
Centre for Policy Studies‘ director Robert Colvile said: “This was a bad Budget in every way. Bad because it raises tax to post-war highs. Bad because it puts off difficult decisions until the final years of the forecast period. And bad because it avoids any attempt at reforming and simplifying the tax system.” Bad, bad, bad…
Labour promised £8.5 billion of tax hikes in its manifesto. Two budgets later, Reeves has increased them by £66 billion to splurge on spending and stave off a Labour rebellion. A backbencher budget…
