Mohammad Yasin MP

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Mohammad Yasin, MP for Bedford and Kempston

The Chancellor delivered a spend now, tax later Budget to drag the UK economy out of the Covid-19 crisis with a short-term boost to business which might get us through the next months of the pandemic.

This falls way short of what is needed to get the UK on a recovery setting for what has been a catastrophic hit to the economy – the worst of any major economy because of the Government’s dreadful handling of the pandemic.

The budget is concrete evidence that the Tory levelling up-agenda is nothing but empty words. There was no attempt to tackle the deep inequalities in society or recognise public sector workers – the very people that have got us through the pandemic.

NHS funding will be cut in real terms with no attempt to recognise or help the traumatised workforce. The 1% pay rise is an insult and will do nothing to tackle the recruitment and retention crisis or plug the 100,000 NHS vacancies. The long-promised plans to fix social care are nowhere to be seen.

There was also no mention of schools or teachers, or crime in the Budget or restoring Britain’s high streets. And most notably, not even a whisper of Brexit

If ever we needed the Brexit dividend we were promised, it’s now!

It turns out that the £350 million a week for the NHS is actually a £3.50 a week pay rise for nurses.

Trade to the EU plummeted by 41% or £5.6 billion as Brexit border chaos sparked a slump in goods headed to the continent with a whopping 2.9% drop in GDP in January.

The Brexit deal is so bad, and is causing so many problems for businesses and ordinary people, with friction at borders and the extra costs of non-tariff barriers and bureaucracy, that the Government doesn’t want to implement the deal it signed and has unilaterally granted itself a 6 month grace period for checks on goods which could land them once again in legal hot water.

The Government had the opportunity to extend the transition period when we all understood the extent of the economic catastrophe caused by the pandemic, but the Prime Minister forged ahead and inflicted the double hit of Brexit and the pandemic on the nation.

It is also a Budget that falls way short of what is needed to tackle climate change and is a lost opportunity to build a greener, fairer economy.

This isn’t building back better, but a Government choosing to hit families up and down the country at the worst possible time with the triple hammer blow of council tax rises, cuts to Universal Credit in 6 months’ time and pay freezes.