Chancellor Philip Hammond set to announce £13billion Budget boost and it’s thanks to our booming economy
Former International Development Secretary Priti Patel warns that meddling Brussels could still disrupt Britain's Brexit plans
GOOD NEWS! The Government has just found an extra £13billion a year.
The Chancellor is set to announce an unexpected £13 billion annual windfall in this week’s budget, which means he won’t have to take away more of what you earn and put up your taxes to fund the extra £20 billion a year that has been promised for the NHS by 2023.
This is good news for taxpayers and also for our economy, as this is the largest annual change in borrowing forecasts since this data was first produced in 1982 when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister.
And there’s a reason for this windfall. It shows the strength and resilience of the UK economy alongside the efforts and hard work of families and households up and down the country.
In conventional times voters might rightly expect the result of this to be lower taxes (or at least to be spared tax rises), more investment in our public services or to see progress in us paying off the ever ballooning national debt.
Instead the Government is preparing to blow this cash - your money - by giving into even more of the EU’s demands.
Until last week, Britain expected a 21 month “transition” or “implementation” period after we formally leave the EU next year on March 29, 2019.
Then, late last week the Government shocked everyone by proposing that we stay in the EU longer than we were originally told and that we extend the so called ‘negotiating period’ to leave the EU.
Worse still, on Monday in the House of Commons, we were told that this transition period might last until June 2022 – that’s six years after the referendum result. Whatever happened to Brexit means Brexit?
On top of our extended membership of the EU, we can expect a bill from the EU! That’s right more of your money with an extra price tag of approximately £10 billion each year in contributions to the EU.
The Treasury has budgeted for this until the end of 2020 but for each year after 2020, the cost will be as high as £15 billion because we will have lost the £4.5 billion a year rebate which was famously secured and successfully negotiated in 1984 by Margaret Thatcher when she demanded our money back from the EU.
The British people are once again being treated like fools. What we are now witnessing is a blatant attempt to keep Britain in the EU while Brussels continues to raid the pockets of British taxpayers.
This must end and the Government should invoke the great Thatcherite spirit of Fontainebleau and say No, No, No to Brussels. Because pumping our money into an undemocratic and unaccountable system two years after Britain voted to leave the EU is simply not right or acceptable. It makes a mockery of our democracy and is an insult to the British public.
It is our money and that money should be handed back to the people and communities across the UK to invest in our domestic priorities.
It could help people across Britain– especially the least well off – by giving them back more of the money that they earn by cutting their taxes.
For example, if we cut the basic rate of income tax by a penny, that would cost us £4 billion.
By increasing the personal allowance by a £1,000, many more of the poorest paid households would be taken out of tax altogether, that’d cost us £5.8 billion. And if we cut beer and cider duty by 4 pence, that would cost us £0.2 billion.
So by easing the tax burden for the lowest paid and doing our bit to save British pubs from closing, we’d have invested £10 billion into longer term economic growth in our economy.
And with the other £3 billion? How about supporting the millions of families who want to own their own home by cutting stamp duty for homeowners, we can again help the least well off and give them a hand up and support them in their aspirations to own their home.
We could also take more first time buyers out of paying stamp duty altogether? If we raised the starting threshold of £125,000 to £175,000, this would cost the Treasury £0.75 billion.
Then there’s the VAT we pay on domestic gas and electricity. The 5 per cent VAT charge on domestic fuel and power raised around £1.6 billion in 2017/18. If we got rid of this we would make fuel cheaper and families would have a little extra left over in their monthly pay packets.
MOST READ IN OPINION
What about the VAT charged on sanitary products for women? This should end now and not when we leave the EU s the Government previously promised, especially as leaving the EU will take longer than we were previously promised. VAT receipts from the sale of sanitary products costs approximately £0.15 billion a year but importantly this one VAT cut that would unite women across the country.
I could go on. There are so many important domestic key services and priorities to invest in.
To govern is to choose and the choice being made our Government is to spend your money on an expensive and everlasting EU membership.
And all this comes on top of the ridiculous capitulation where we have agreed to the EU’s demands to hand over a £39 billion pay cheque for absolutely nothing in return.
Britain needs once again to have a long term economic plan that puts our national interest first.
Let’s start standing up for Britain by investing in people, businesses and communities rather than the unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats of the European Union.
- GOT a story? RING 0207 782 4104 or WHATSAPP on 07423720250 or EMAIL [email protected]