Balls 'won't reverse any of Budget'

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 19 Maret 2015 | 15.36

19 March 2015 Last updated at 08:18

Ed Balls has said there was nothing in a "pretty empty" Budget which Labour would reverse if it won the election.

The shadow chancellor told the BBC he welcomed the plan to axe tax on the first £1,000 of interest from savings and to give help for first time buyers.

In his Budget Mr Osborne said Britain was a "comeback country" and warned against a return to Labour "chaos".

Lib Dem Mr Alexander said they would borrow less than Labour and cut less than the Conservatives.

The Lib Dems will announce new measures to tackle tax evasion later as they set out their own budgetary plans.

The three men's tour of media outlets came the morning after Mr Osborne used the Budget to draw the battle lines for the general election in seven weeks' time.

The tax and spending plans of the Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems are all likely to come under scrutiny as the influential Institute for Fiscal Studies prepares to give its post-Budget analysis.

On Wednesday, in his final set-piece pitch to voters before May's election, Mr Osborne announced that if the Conservatives won power, the first £1,000 of savings interest would be tax free - meaning 95% of savers would pay no tax.

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He also said savings put aside for a deposit by first-time buyers would be topped up by the government - to the tune of £50 for every £200 saved - while the personal tax allowance would rise from £10,600 to £11,000 by 2016-7.

Other measures announced in the Budget included:

  • Beer duty to be cut by 1p, cider and spirits duties by 2%
  • Pension rules to be relaxed from April 2016 to allow up to five million existing pensioners to swap their fixed annual payments for cash
  • Annual tax returns to be scrapped and replaced with "digital tax accounts"
  • The bank levy to be raised to 0.21% to bring in an additional £900m a year
  • £1.3bn in tax cuts for North Sea oil exploration
  • Read more - Budget reaction live and Budget key points at-a-glance

Mr Osborne hailed slightly better-than-expected growth figures, which suggest the economy will expand by 2.5% this year, and said the government had met its 2010 target to end this Parliament with Britain's national debt falling as a share of GDP.

He said he would use a boost in the public finances caused by lower inflation and welfare payments to pay off some of the national debt and end the squeeze on public spending a year earlier than planned.

In 2019/20 spending will grow in line with the growth of the economy - bringing state spending as a share of national income to the same level as in 2000, he said.

Labour leader Ed Miliband

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Ed Miliband: "This is a Budget people won't believe"

But despite Mr Osborne relaxing his plans, shadow chancellor Ed Balls said the Treasury's own figures showed spending at the "lowest level since 1938" in 2018/19.

The independent Office for Budget Responsibility said Mr Osborne's plans implied "a much sharper squeeze on real spending in 2016-17 and 2017-18 than anything seen over the past five years, followed by the biggest increase in real spending for a decade in 2019-20", a pattern it described as a "rollercoaster profile".

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BBC economics editor Robert Peston said the Conservatives believed this critique was unfair as more than a third of the cuts earmarked for the first two years would come from welfare rather than departmental spending - though these had not been spelt out.

'Precipitous edge'

Treasury minister David Gauke suggested that projected cuts to departmental budgets in the coming years would be broadly in line with those seen since 2010.

"We have gone from a position where debt was increasing very rapidly to a position where debt will be falling for the first time in 15 years," he told the BBC's Newsnight.

Labour has claimed the Conservatives have a "secret plan" to cut the NHS because they would not be able to deliver their planned "colossal cuts" to other areas of public spending and would also be forced to increase VAT.

"We are at point where we are looking over the precipitous edge of that rollercoaster, and the NHS and our public services are about to be pushed over it if the Conservatives get their way," shadow Treasury minister Chris Leslie told Newsnight.

Mr Osborne's sixth Budget statement, which came against a backdrop of a strengthening economic recovery, a fresh fall in unemployment and inflation at historic lows, was also criticised by UKIP, the Green Party, the SNP and Plaid Cymru.

But business groups said it would provide "stability and consistency".

Paul Johnson, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It remains the case that the Conservatives are looking for budget balance.

"And it remains the case that Labour are [happy] with current budget balance and that does leave a difference of £25 or £30 billion worth of spending between them by the end of the parliament.

"You will see a difference in public service spending, between the two by the end of parliament. And you will see a difference in terms of the amount of spending on welfare."

Do you have a question about the Budget? We will be putting a selection of your questions to Martin Lewis of moneysavingexpert.com at 11.30 GMT on the BBC News Channel. You can send us your questions by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk. If you are available to speak to a BBC journalist, please include a contact telephone number.

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