Before George Osborne steps up to the dispatch box today we already know which Government departments will be protected from the cuts and which will have to take the brunt. The Tories have pledged to protect the NHS, education, defence, pensions and foreign aid, so that leaves vulnerable the police, local government (and just think of the huge number of services they provide), social care, further education (apparently not considered ‘real’ education), renewable energy and, of course, welfare.
In his speech last week, and again in the Huffington Post today, Tim Farron has outlined the five things that Liberal Democrats would like to see in Spending Review, briefly: £250 million additional spending on mental health, stopping the tax credit cuts, investment in enterprise, commitment to investment in infrastructure, analysis of impact on the poor.
Please use the comments below to add your thoughts on the spending review in the Autumn Statement.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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33 Comments
He has just compared the tampon tax with Libor fines – weird or what?
I’m rather alarmed at the permanent pothole fund. 🙂
Looks like four out of Tim’s five things have been delivered. Will we be supporting it then?
Poor John McDonnell – you had to watch it live to fully realise just how abysmal and monotonous he could be. If you use a prop in a speech it has to WORK dramatically or comically. I know I should get out more but when he brought the Little Red Book out I was shouting: “Don’t do it John” at the telly. How could he have been handed the solid gold of the tax credit U-turn and turn it into doo-doo?
I don’t like the guy, but you have to admit he’s a clever little devil. Hardly anything for MacDonnell to attack and Osborne comes out of it as some kind of hero for saving tax credits, no police cuts and providing more cheaper housing! Most of the media will now be singing his praises, even the “Tampon” tax idea will get him good headlines – amazing.
Who was it said that, if you build an ‘eyesore’ that gets complaints, wait a few weeks then paint it bright orange….Complaints will intensify and, when you re-paint it a more sombre colour, everyone will believe they’ve won a victory and the eyesore will remain….
@Mary: I can’t help but feel the permanent pothole fund will be up there with the cones hotline…
I never really felt that there was much chance of Labour members/moderates/malcontents with Corbyn’s leadership leaving Labour. Today, my view changed, with McDonnell quoting Mao. If they can’t seize back control of their party, they’ll have to leave. Surely they can’t put up with their shadow chancellor quoting Mao in the House of Commons?
Mary Reid 25th Nov ’15 – 1:29pm The permanent pothole fund is not new. The extra money comes from the Office of Budget Responsibility being less cautious. George Osborne is a very sharp tactician but a poor strategist, because he is interested in the Westminster bubble, but out of touch in the country, hence the mess he got into on tax credits. As a tactician GO is well aware that there are Police and Crime Commissioner elections in May 2016, but, if he was not, he will have been told, hence the unique permission to increase the precept on the council tax by 2%.
McDonnell’s little trick backfired, but the point is valid, why the hell are foreign states backrolling and running our infrastructure?
It is sheer madness. In fact I’d go as far to say that it is anti-British.
Just saw a bit of it . I caught a sight of Norman Lamb; but where were the other Lib Dems.? I’ll have to watch the recording I’m making later. I do agree about the Shadow Chancellor. Mind you, it’s always tough when you have got to extemporise. As for George it was the usual ‘smoke and mirrors’, overhyped you might say., not that Tim and co will make much difference. We, and to some extent all the other opposition parties, are in the present circumstances very much observers at the feast
I’m alarmed by the reduction in Short Funding. Would like to see some analysis on where this will leave us…
I think that George Osborne is a strategist, or at least more of one than most politicians. He has brought under his control much of Whitehall that the Treasury has found difficult to control in the past and taken over completely devolution, which had no natural home anywhere but you certainly wouldn’t have wanted it to be in the Treasury’s hands. He enunciates a vision of Britain that people may or may not share, but few other politicians offer any vision (and we don’t do it enough) and sets his announcements in that vision. He is brave enough (as Gladstone was) to climb down completely when he has to, not in steps, because he knows the row will blow over, whereas incremental climb-downs reignite rows with every step.
The Labour party was stumped today, but the real losers are probably the home secretary and George Osborne’s other rivals and, perhaps too, the prime minister. If it wasn’t on before, the race for the Tory leadership is on now.
My initial thought was exactly the same as for every statement under Coalition and now CON. Can someone, anyone, of any party please explain to me why we are increasing spend on a number of ringfenced sacred cows? In a fiscal consolidation these protections mean deeper cuts elsewhere. Put another way, we are about to spend (well, borrow) about £2bn for fuel payment cheques and as a consequence some other area, likely already slashed, has taken a battering.
I am yet to hear any compelling reason why this is happening. Every budget and spending review I look for it, no on seems to have this reason to hand.
And to save anyone saying it, Labour probably would have ringfenced things too, I’m quite mindful of that.
Ian MacFadyen 25th Nov ’15 – 4:24pm GO is surprisingly radical, but he has stopped saying ‘long term economic plan’ which is a relief because the long term is presumably after the general election in 2020. Will HMRC actually be a paperless office? Will Victorian prisons be easily converted into housing that ordinary civilians would want? Where will female prisoners be accommodated after Holloway is sold? Perhaps in a lot of local prisons?
There is a lot more that needs to be discussed. Why is it necessary to subsidise private housebuilding when profits are high and brickies have made enough money in a four-day week? This is an issue for the Public Accounts Committee. Perhaps the money will be used to clean up brownfield sites in public ownership, but if not, why? Are the housebuilders major donors to the Tory Party?
To cover his u-turns Osborne needs more money; ‘lo and behold’ the OBR suddenly decides that it’s previous forecasts weren’t optimistic enough and there is another £27Billion over the next few years…..
“If it looks too good to be true; it usually is”…
Ian McFadyen – ‘He enunciates a vision of Britain that people may or may not share, but few other politicians offer any vision (and we don’t do it enough) and sets his announcements in that vision.’
This is spot on. Whether or not I like the chap he has been able to articulate a clear vision. I really think that all the stuff about, ‘higher wage, lower welfare economy etc,’ has really struck a chord with the public mood. How we get to that vision is another matter – at least the vision for the country is there. Too often GO is caricatured as a slash and burner – there may be something in that of course, but there’s far more going on and the public can see it.
Clegg and Ed M both tried and failed with their squeezed middle/alarm-clock Britain ideas. Jeremy Corbyn is basically an attempt to see whether a vision of some nationalisation and banging some old internet in-crowd friendly drums can overcome the public mood at the moment on what might be termed austerity-lite. I’m in no doubt that his attempt will fail.
The public aren’t dumb and they can see that GO, for good or for bad has a vision where everyone else seems to have a great big black hole. And these are the people we’re probably going to be looking to for vision on the EU in less than a year’s time.
I know the LibDems are thin on the ground, but surely they must have a economics spokesman in the Commons. I can’t remember seeing one, but surely they have someone. Perhaps they have never heard the saying “it’s the economy stupid”.
The Autumn Statement was alright. I give it 6/10 for the climbdown on tax credit and police cuts plus the extra defence spending.
Buy to let landlords are getting hit too hard though. The decision in the last budget to tax them on their mortgage interest is unfair. It also seems like some magic money has been found.
When it comes to the short-money cut: It’s hypocrisy to get outraged over this whilst there has been a lot of silence and sometimes even encouragement for Lords to vote down Tory bill after Tory bill. Democratic rights aren’t just for the left.
Malc, I think you’ll find that the de facto economy spokesman in the HoC (by his own choice) is Tim Farron.
Five things :
Five things we learned, Five things we want….all common currency in local journalism these days… even Tim’s doing it.
Here are my five things that should be food for thought on this, the Financial statement day..
1. My local foodbank is busier than ever with increasing demand – here are some sobering figures covering the Coalition years – with no signs of slackening now the Tories rule the roost alone..
2. 913,138 people received three days’ emergency food from Trussell Trust foodbanks in 2013-14 compared to 346, 992 in 2012-13
3. These figures are ‘tip of the iceberg’ of UK food poverty says Trussell Trust Chairman
4. 83% of Foodbanks report ‘sanctioning’ is causing rising numbers to turn to them
5. Did it get a mention by anybody in the Spending Review today ? If not, why not ?
Eddie Sammon – Damn right. The suffering the BTL classes have endured over the past 15 years is just intolerable really. I was just thinking to myself how terrible it is that the statement didn’t facilitate substantial direct cash transfers to BTL landlords – I mean I just weep at how hard done-to they are.
BTL is perhaps the last thing that makes me swell with pride at being British, perhaps we could all club together and nominate landlords for an OBE or something.
As a thought, maybe you could buy your BTL landlord a nice bottle of wine or something?
BTL or at least landlords are nothing new. When I moved job In the 1980s I had the option of paying my mortgage on a flat and letting my partner to stay there, she had a good stable job, whilst I was renting in London. We eventually saved enough to pay off the mortgage and I paid less than the rent on a house where I was working. How anyone raises a deposit now I do wonder.
Question: When is a U turn not a U turn? Answer: When you have no effective opposition.
@Little Jackie Paper – re: BTL
Looking at the various measures levelled against BTL property owners, it seems that once again the government has tilted the playing field away from the small business person in favour of the large property management businesses where it is economic (ie. tax efficient) to be located off-shore…
Well, I fell asleep for a few minutes when Osborne started talking in the Commons and, when I woke up, I thought I was watching Dumbledore in Hogwarts…….
A few short days ago Tax Credit cuts were so essential to our recovery that the HoL was threatened with ‘excommunication’ for destroying George’s plan. The cuts to the police and armed services were inevitable, if regrettable, milestones on our road to Shangri-La….
In forcing through these cuts, unpopular with his own party, George’s hopes for leadership were in tatters and the contest was between the ‘Blonde Boris’ and ‘Miss Whiplash’….He was in an impossible position but, like the hero in a Saturday morning matinee, “With one bound, he was free!”
It was magic! He needed to avoid Tax Credit cuts and, in view of the Paris attacks, cutting police and armed forces was a no-no. However, suddenly, despite October’s tax figures, the OBR fairy came to his rescue…..
I mean it’s happened to all of us; when you’re short of a few bob for the bus fare you look down the back of the sofa and there it is; £27 Billion…
I know this prediction is coming from the same source that enabled him to promise the elimination of the deficit by 2015, etc. but mentioning that would be churlish….
As an earlier George with all Mr. Osborne’s talents used to say, “It’s turned out nice, again”…
Amazing what you can do with fortuitous runaway private sector wage inflation – something nobody seems to comment on. Pay restraint in the public sector at the same time as increased tax receipts from that runaway inflation amounts to the same thing as cutting without having to do any ‘cutting’.
Tuition fees are now even more regressive given the freezing of the repayment threshold. Higher earners will pay back sooner and pay even less. Lower earners will pay even more. Well done Lib Dems.
Expats and David Raw – spot on.
Osborne has a tried and tested MO.
1. Leak doom and gloom then row back and be introduced by the BBC as ‘the man of the hour’!
2. Adjust growth/tax receipts (I know using the ‘independent and so reliable’ OBR)
3. Throttle welfare to those most vulnerable
4. Slip in a few stealth cuts (buried in small print)
5. Back load timing of cuts to last year of term
6. Claim the glory of fiscal responsibility for four years, ably supported by an unquestioning media
7. In the last year just push deficit targets over into next Parliament.
It reminds me of the early years of Thatcher and the fawning interviews by ‘commentators’ who so willingly hung on every word and treated any opponents with derision.
Dave Orbison 26th Nov ’15 – 11:47am
You may well be sceptical…..from the OBR’s own website…..
Forecast evaluation report 22nd September 2015
This year’s Forecast evaluation report looks at the latest data for 2014-15 – five years on from our first forecast in June 2010. Lower-than-expected nominal GDP growth explains much of the error in our borrowing forecast from then, but receipts were weaker still. As a result, our borrowing forecast was £60 billion too optimistic, but more recent…….Blah, blah,blah….…]
So, although we were £60Billion out on our previous forecasts, you can trust us on this one??????????
expats – So much for the OBR not too mention having to borrow more last month than forecast. Pretty much a ‘make it up as you go along’ approach., Still no doubt someone’s name is moving up the Honour’s Nomination list.
I gather from my daughter that many young women are outraged that they are being expected to fund charities that Osborne thinks deal with women’s issues when they are, in fact, society’s issues. They are still cross about the tampon tax and Osborne has shown his complete misunderstanding of problems like domestic violence, rape etc.
It is a tactic of his to turn the tables like this when he knows he’s on to a loser and shows a complete lack of faith in his own policies.
The tampon tax is a gimmick by both sides. £15m is nothing. Scale matters when talking about taxation and £15m equates to a total taxation amount of around £1 per year for women in that age bracket. £1. How much would it cost to change the legislation? A sense of proportion please.
SYRIA, THE CARE CRISIS AND LOCAL AUTHORITY FUNDING
Whilst we prepare for war in Syria (no costs announced yet in the Spending Review – but Iraq cost £ 4.5 billion and Afghanistan £ 37 billion) we are about to face a care crisis
Osborne has dodged the issue of imploding Care for the elderly and piled it onto local authorities and Council Tax payers.
The result will be a post code lottery (in England). Many care homes (Four Seasons is the biggest) are about to experience imminent meltdown as a result of the pincer movement of increasing costs and reduced local government.
Osborne constantly talks about “our brave RAF pilots”………….. well as the son of “a brave RAF pilot” of WW2 it doesn’t take me much of a leap of the imagination to realise that the surviving WW2 generation are about to face a terrible crisis in the next few weeks unless Osborne finds a bit more dosh down the sofa.
Meanwhile GO poses with bricklayers wearing a nice, clean, high visibilty jacket.