Labour’s “lines to take” on the budget

Sky’s Adam Boulton has tweeted Labour’s “lines to take” on the Budget. Here it is (and below, incase you can’t read it, is the text in full):

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Budget response

Topline: Today’s Budget proved that you’re worse off under the Tories with no action to deal with the cost-of-living crisis.

The Chancellor boasted about how well things were going, but it was totally out of touch with hardworking people facing a cost-of-living crisis. We need a recovery for the many, not just a few at the top.

  • Wages are down £1,600 a year since David Cameron become Prime Minister
  • The OBR confirmed that people will be worse off in 2015 than they were in 2010.
  • They talk about the personal allowance but forget the 24 Tory tax rises introduced by George Osborne.
  • Energy bills are up almost £300 since the election.
  • George Osborne has overseen the slowest recovery for 100 years, and is forecast to borrow over £180 billion more than planned.

David Cameron and George Osborne can’t deliver a recovery for the many because they stand up for a privileged few. 

  • They cut the top rate of tax for people earning over £150,000, while everyone else is worse off.
  • Bank bonuses are rising again, even though businesses still can’t get the finance they need.
  • Since George Osborne boasted about a “march of the makers”, manufacturing, construction, infrastructure investment are all down. Exports are falling not rising.
  • Even Michael Gove says that the number of Old Etonians in the Prime Minister’s inner circle is “ridiculous” and preposterous”.

Britain can do better than this. Britain needs a Labour Government to:

  • Freeze energy bills until 2017 and reform the broken energy market.
  • Put the young people back to work, with a job the young unemployed have to take — paid for by a tax on bank bonuses.
  • Expand free childcare for working parents to 25 hours a week for 3 and 4 year olds.
  • Cut taxes for 24 million working people on middle and low incomes with a lower 10p starting rate of income tax.
  • Cut business rates for small firms and a plan to get 200,000 homes build a year by 2020.
  • Balance the books in the next Parliament, in a fairer way including reversing the £3 billion tax cut for people earning over £150,000.
The Budget announced a package for pensioners. Help for savers is welcoma nd we’ll look at the details but:
  • People will not forget the Granny Tax.
  • The Budget failed to cap pension fees and charges which leave pensioners paying up to £230,000 over their lifetimes.

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