Last week, our Labour government proposed one of the more significant budgets in post-war British history. It is a budget that decisively changes course and invests desperately needed money into our public services.
It turns the page on 14 years of Tory austerity – and the associated death-spiral of public service cuts, rising inequality and increasingly fractured communities. It offers some hope: a belief in people and society and a chance for a fairer country.
It does so by acknowledging a core fact – that to build a fair society, you need strong and accessible public services, which in turn need to be funded properly.
This budget is notable because of the scale of the revenues being raised for public services – the largest increase in a single budget since 1970 in real terms.
But its historic significance comes in the way those revenues have been raised. The Labour Party stood on a promise not to raise income tax, employee national insurance contributions and VAT – in other words, the taxes that most working people pay.
The party has kept that promise and instead proposed tax rises on those with the broadest shoulders – asset owners and businesses – making it the most progressive budget in 55 years.
It is a budget with Labour values at its core – and establishes a dramatic dividing line with the Conservative Party.
Indeed, their new leader, Kemi Badenoch, committed on her first day in post to reversing these revenue-raising measures and inflicting further devastating cuts to public services.
This budget could hardly be more consequential for Brighton and Hove. It begins the process of properly funding the public services that are most needed in our city.
It brings £22 billion for the NHS – nowhere more significant than in a city with a struggling NHS trust, high waiting lists and an A&E department that often seems in crisis.
There is a 19 per cent real-terms increase in funding for education and school buildings – so vital for Brighton and Hove given the pressures on local school budgets and the higher-than-average costs our schools face.
There is also £1 billion extra funding for special educational needs which will be welcomed by so many families locally.
The national living wage will increase by 6.7 per cent to £12.21 – about £1,400 a year for a full-time worker – a lifeline for many in a city with deep inequality and high numbers of retail and hospitality workers.
There is an increase of £1.3 billion in funding for local government – which will help protect vital local services. And significantly £5 billion of capital investment in housing, with a focus on affordable and social homes – a promising start in tackling our chronic housing crisis.
A £500 million increase in the budget for road resurfacing and pothole repairs is also something to be welcomed in every ward from Portslade to Saltdean.
This budget is a gentle reminder to our friends in the Green Party, who often try to strike a more progressive pose than the Labour Party.
Their election manifesto aspired to raise “£50 billion per year by 2030” for public services. This Labour government has raised almost that amount in our very first budget.
Winning four seats out of 650 and promising the moon on a stick is a somewhat different prospect to winning a national majority government and then delivering an historic budget for working people. That is what genuinely progressive politics looks like.
Both the Labour government and your local Labour council know full well that 14 years of destruction cannot be repaired overnight.
But this budget is a bold and compassionate move in the right direction and will begin the process of renewing our city and rebuilding the country.
Jacob Taylor is a Labour councillor and the deputy leader of Brighton and Hove City Council.
Glad to see this item is designated ‘opinion’ rather than news. Perhaps ‘Party political broadcast’ would be more appropriate.
This is just propaganda and spin.
Councillor Jacob Taylor is simply ignoring the post budget concerns being raised by GPs, small businesses and live music venues about the concerns many of them have about their businesses being decimated and left worse off.
He also seems oblivious to the fact that the SEND shortfall nationally is estimated at £4bn and expected to rise to £5.9bn by next year, so the Govt are far from doing anywhere near enough to stop failing vulnerable children who need this support. They have legal duties to support children struggling to access education, yet the money coming form the Govt will hardly touch the sides. What a load of waffle.
Haha more nonsense from this “progressive” long serving Bank of America employee and councillor.
I can’t actually remember Greens promising the “moon on a stick”, but weirdly can remember Labour promising nationally that they wouldn’t raise taxes (they have), and remember them forgetting to mention anything about scrapping winter fuel allowance, and locally saying they wouldn’t close schools (they did).
We’ve got a council who can’t answer phones because they don’t have enough staff to deal with basic functions, so until the council can do the basics, Councillor Taylor is the one on another planet.