Budget Sheffield: ‘Missed opportunities’ says mayor Oliver Coppard but more help on energy bills promised

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has used a £25 billion-a-year improvement in the public finances to dramatically expand access to childcare and offer tax breaks to businesses and wealthy pensioners , but announced some 12 new investment zones will be created, offering up to £80 million of support each for tax breaks and incentives and plans to extend support for energy bills..

South Yorkshire’s Labour Mayor Oliver Coppard said: “While there is some good news for South Yorkshire in today’s Budget – we welcome the opportunities afforded by Investment Zones, the extension to support with energy bills and the offer of help families with childcare costs – there were also missed opportunities to make a real difference to the lives of our communities.

‘Nothing to stabilise broken bus market’

“There was nothing in today’s announcement to tackle some of the systemic problems holding back South Yorkshire. Our economic growth is held back by the number of people suffering from long-term, often preventable health conditions, not the limits on how much we can pay into our pension pots. The Chancellor had a £25billion windfall to spend but found no pay rises for nurses and teachers, and nothing to stabilise our broken bus market so people can actually get to and from work.

“Ultimately budgets are about priorities and choices. As growth remains anaemic and people across South Yorkshire see their living standards continue to fall, the Chancellor has yet again chosen to prioritise short-term solutions over tackling our country’s long-term – and increasingly glaring – problems.”

Louise Haigh, Labour MP for Sheffield Heeley, said: “This Budget was an opportunity for the Government to show that they are really standing up for the British people and backing them to fulfil their potential. Instead, what they continued to do was paper over the cracks of 13 years of failure.

“I think people will be shocked that there was nothing in the Budget to tackle NHS waiting lists, to tackle the housing crisis or the rising levels of crime. And instead, they gave a massive tax cut to the richest one per cent in society. It will astonish people across Sheffield that they've resorted to Liz Truss- style policies when people are struggling so badly.”

In a Budget aimed at increasing the numbers of people in work and the productivity of British firms, the Chancellor said the economy would avoid a recession and was "proving the doubters wrong".

But the size of the economy is still forecast to shrink this year, living standards are the worst on record and the tax burden remains on course to be the highest since the Second World War.

What help does the budget give to childcare?

Mr Hunt committed to spend more than £5.2 billion a year in 2027-28 on offering working parents in England up to 30 hours of funded childcare for pre-school children aged from nine months.

The move is expected to raise employment by 60,000 as it frees up parents to work, as well as "raising the hours worked by mothers already in work", the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said.

A multi-billion pound tax break on pensions is intended to stop an estimated 15,000 high earners - including senior NHS doctors - leaving the workforce.

The OBR said the economy would avoid a technical recession - two consecutive quarters of shrinkage - but it still forecast a contraction of 0.2 per cent this year, a significant improvement on the -1.4 per cent predicted in November.

Mr Hunt told MPs: "In the face of enormous challenges I report today on a British economy which is proving the doubters wrong."

What help does the budget give on household energy bills?

The Chancellor also used the improved economic picture to promise an extension of support for household bills, maintaining the energy price guarantee at its current £2,500 level from April to June.

In other measures which were announced in today’s budget:

- The fuel duty freeze and the 5p cut in its rate will be maintained for another year, saving the average driver around £100 at a cost of more than £5 billion this year.

- Taking advantage of tax flexibility since leaving the European Union, a "Brexit pubs guarantee" will see duty on draught pints up to 11p lower than in supermarkets, although drinkers will see tax on alcohol soar from August in line with inflation.

- Some 12 new investment zones will be created, offering up to £80 million of support each for tax breaks and incentives.

- Mr Hunt promised the "biggest change to our welfare system in a decade", with reforms aimed at supporting more disabled people into work.

- There will be tougher sanctions for benefits claimants who fail to meet requirements to look for work or choose not to take up a reasonable job offer.

- Mr Hunt assigned an extra £10 million to charities on suicide prevention.

- He pledged £900 million for a new supercomputer to help harness the power of artificial intelligence, while £2.5 billion will go to a research and innovation programme for quantum computing.

Despite the promises of help with the cost of living, families still face a painful financial squeeze.

Living standards, based on real household disposable income (RHDI) per person, is expected to fall by a cumulative 5.7 per cent over the two financial years 2022-23 and 2023-24 - less than forecast in November but still the largest since records began in 1956-57.