What’s so funny, Prime Minister?
Tories break election pledge by raising tax for millions of self-employed £2bn on social care but Chancellor fails to bail out crisis-hit NHS Sneaky rises on booze & cigs and he robs hard-up schools to fund grammars
THE Tories swept into power on a tide of promises to protect workers, the NHS and ordinary families.
But Philip Hammond yesterday shattered most of those pledges with a Budget that battered the self-employed, snubbed hospitals close to collapse and whacked up prices on booze and cigs.
The shameless Chancellor also vowed to press ahead with welfare cuts but vowed to lavish £1billion on grammar and free schools for a select few – at the expense of comprehensives.
Mr Hammond broke the Tories’ main 2015 election pledge by hiking National Insurance for 2.5million self-employed workers who earn more than £8,060 a year from 9% to 11%.
They are already denied holiday and sick pay and the rise will leave them up to £620 a year worse off. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said: “This is a betrayal. Labour will oppose this unfair £2billion tax on the self-employed.” Leader Jeremy Corbyn called the Budget one of “utter complacency” and said it was “entirely out of touch with that reality of life for millions”.
Even Tories turned on Mr Hammond over the shocking U-turn. Wiltshire MP Andrew Murrison said: “This party has always supported white van man and white van woman.
“I hope we can have some reassurance that self-employed plumbers, electricians and plasterers and such are not going to be disadvantaged.”
MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan said the self-employed are “risk-takers” and our “next business leaders”.
Before the election the Tory manifesto promised “no increases in VAT, National Insurance contributions or income tax for the next five years”.
Mr Hammond didn’t mention Brexit once and there was no talk of handing the £350million a week saved by leaving the EU to the NHS.
He stumped up just £2.4billion over three years to ease the crisis in social care – dismissed as a drop in the ocean by campaigners.
The Chancellor announced his raid on self-employed taxes will help pay for the Tories’ beloved free schools programme. Many will be selective, making them grammar schools. Mr Hammond hiked up the price of beer, cider wines and spirits – the first time in 25 years all booze has risen in a Budget. That will hurt public sector workers as he refused to lift their 1% pay rise cap. And the Office for Budget Responsibility warned the party is to fall short on its pledge to raise the national minimum wage to £9 an hour by 2020. There was nothing to help Theresa May’s “Just About Managing families”.
And with inflation forecast to hit 2.4% this year, households will struggle further.
End Child Poverty branded the Budget “disappointing”. Chair Sam Royston said: “Instead of using it to help disadvantaged families, the Chancellor has left them out in the cold.”
Despite Tory claims the economy is thriving, experts warned Britain’s £1.7trillion debt could soar – shattering another manifesto pledge to bring it under control by 2025.
There was better news for small businesses as Mr Hammond offered measures to combat the rates rises which had been set to clobber many firms.
This Budget is entirely out of touch with the reality of life for millions JEREMY CORBYN ON CHANCELLOR’S TAX RAID
THE political and economic bankrupty of Theresa May’s divisive Tory Government was brutally exposed in Chancellor Philip Hammond’s incompetent Budget.
He broke a solemn election vow by raising National Insurance for self-employed strivers, then added insult to injury by gifting corporation tax breaks to the huge firms who exploit those very same workers, in a glaring demonstration of unjust two nation Conservatism.
The whiff of previous Chancellor George Osborne’s disastrous pasty tax fiasco hangs around hopeless Hammond after his raid on grafters who have enterprise and aspirations.
Equally indefensible is his neglect of an ailing NHS. We should be concerned when Hammond appears to hate the NHS so much he is prepared to let our most precious public asset decline and let suffering patients pay the price of this terrifying inaction.
In 1983, the then Labour leader Neil Kinnock warned us not to be ordinary, young, ill or to grow old under the Tories. That feels frighteningly appropriate 34 years later as May’s Chancellor is allowed to turn his back on the NHS.
Hammond’s Budget is a political failure and we will all pay the price for that.