First published: Prospectmagazine.co.uk, 8/03/2017
He had little to say about long-term macroeconomic issues
Chancellor Philip Hammond’s last spring Budget—this ritual is going to be merged with the Autumn Statement—was never going to be remarkable. It was full of gags (credit to the author) but it also included the contentious boast that the Tories are “the party of the NHS”—without anything of substance to back it up. It was, moreover, a few sandwiches short of a picnic when it came to the macroeconomic issues which will dominate following the next set-piece government statement: later this month the government will announce the triggering of Article 50.
So what did this Budget amount to? The leaks were to the point on business rates reform. There will be an additional £2bn of funding for social care over the next three years, and a Green Paper for longer-term solutions later this year. In what is a clear breach of the government’s commitments on tax and national insurance, there will be a rise in national insurance obligations for the self-employed from April 2018. The Chancellor also announced measures to limit the tax advantages of setting up a company and being paid in dividends, additional funding for selective free schools, confirmation of increases in the national living wage and personal tax allowances, and small-scale allocations off the already agreed £23bn infrastructure commitment to science research, disruptive technologies, transportation and broadband….Read more:
