Among the big themes of John Healey’s Budget – delivered exactly a month from today – will be creating jobs and giving families and firms “breathing space”.
They ran through the Chancellor’s speech to the Labour faithful at the party conference in Liverpool, along with “hope”. With Andy Burnham watching on, Healey spoke of the “pride of good work”, and what it means for households and communities.
Healey – who revealed his first job was as a pot washer in a pub – also described what happens when the hope of work fades, revealing how in his home he has a miners’ lamp from the Cortonwood Colliery in South Yorkshire. The coal board’s sudden announced closure saw miners from there walk out on strike, triggering one of the most significant industrial disputes of the 20th century.
Among Healey’s other buzz phrases of the day was a “new age of industrialisation”, including ensuring that the prospect of getting a well-paid, skilled job, is evenly spread across the country. There was a timely announcement that engineering giant Rolls Royce was investing £300million at its sites across the country, from Derby to Healey’s backyard of Rotherham.
And a celebration of the apprentices who’d helped deliver the first new Mersey Ferry to be built in 60 years, the £26millon Royal Daffodil, by Wirral shipbuilder Cammell Laird. However, while hope can take you so far – and it’s been credited with engendering a “Burnham bounce – the reality of the tough hand Healey has been dealt ahead of the Budget is also plain for all to see.
He didn’t shy away from one of the many hot potatoes on his plate, the burgeoning benefits bill. “It is simply not progressive to allow a bigger and bigger benefits bill and a system which offers an income but doesn’t offer a future,” he told delegates.
Another thorny issue is the eye-watering amount spent on interest to service the nation’s near £3trillion mountain of debt. Healey didn’t seek to sugar coat the pill, especially given the Tories’ part to play after 14 years of chaos, including Brexit. The more than £100billion this year that will be shelled out to those we owe money to is more than the combined spent by the Home Office, justice and defence.
So what will all that mean for households and businesses by the time the Chancellor sits down after outlining his Budget on October 28? The fact is, we don’t know, but it’s a fair guess there will be targeted help, including energy bills potentially and industries with the most pressing needs.
Delaying a planned hike in fuel duty could be among the universal ways in which help is delivered. However, one word sorely missing from the Chancellor’s speech was “tax”, or who would end up worse off after the Budget.
And there could be a good few of them, especially given the Chancellor’s message to financial markets that Labour’s plans will be built on the “rock of fiscal discipline”. In other words, the government’s plans won’t be paid for by a new wave of costly borrowing.
So, Mr Healey might be a little deflated having seen government borrowing costs today rise to the highest level since 2007. That said, he shouldn’t take it too personally as it was driven by fresh Middle East tensions.
The Chancellor is right to champion a “new hope” a “quiet patriotism” and to be “confident in who we are”. But a month from today, hope meets reality, and we’ll finally find out who the winners and losers will be.