CHANCELLOR Jeremy Hunt gave more help to workers in yesterday’s Budget with another 2p cut in National Insurance following the one announced in November.
Together, households will now benefit to the tune of £900, with reductions from 12 to eight per cent in less than four months.
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The only real losers from the Budget are pensioners, who do not pay NI, and smokers, as cigarettes are set to hit an average £16 a pack.
Sun tax expert Jim Lee looked at the finances of six Sun readers from all walks of life – and found they will ALL be better off from the measures.
Here, these readers explain how the Budget will affect them and how they are likely to vote in the next general election.
Couple – £597 a year better off
PHILLIP and Lindsey Lee, both 40, are fairly comfortable but the cost-of-living crisis means they still cannot save for the future.
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Phillip earns £30,000 a year as an administrator for a surveyors’ company, while nursery assistant Lindsey is on £25,000.
The mortgage on their home in Tamworth, Staffs, recently went up to 4.84 per cent, meaning they have to find an extra £230 a month. So they were happy to be nearly £600 a year better off from the previous National Insurance cut.
Phillip says: “The National Insurance cut was the big one again, nearly £600 like last time. We can’t complain. More money in your pocket is always welcome. It gives us some breathing room.
“I will still vote Tory but I’m concerned it was a short-term Budget.
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“With inflation coming down I feel things are better than they were.
“And it seems like the Conservatives are looking after people like us who go to work.”
From £450 tax cut to child benefit changes, what the Budget means for YOUR finances
Couple with kids – £177 better off
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CARE home workers Dan Scarfe, 36, and wife Emma, 33, benefitted from a near £2,500 pay rise thanks to the boost to the National Living Wage in November’s Autumn Statement.
This time they are just shy of £200 better off thanks to the two per cent cut in NI.
Dan does nights, earning £14,500 a year, while Emma works during the day for £19,500. This way, the couple, from Ipswich, can save on childcare for sons Oliver, six, and Luke, four.
They get £39.90 a week in child benefit, which will rise by 6.5 per cent in April.
Dan says: “It feels like we are better off now than we were before the last budget in November. We’re cautiously optimistic about how things are going in general.”
The family welcomed the fuel duty freeze, which the Chancellor thanked The Sun’s Keep It Down campaign for.
Dan adds: “I don’t think this Budget will change anything in terms of how I will vote. I was planning to vote Labour before and nothing has changed.”
Spring Budget at a glance
Disabled worker – £517 better off
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OLANIYI ALABI earns £28,000 as a co-ordinator at London’s King’s College Hospital.
The dad of one, who suffers from polio, drives from his rented home in Westminster to work, spending £300 a month on petrol.
His wife, Jumoke, 39, earns £23,000 as a support worker. Together they were £517 a year better off thanks to the two per cent cut in National Insurance announced in November.
Yesterday’s further cut to eight per cent means they will be another £517 better off.
Olaniyi, who has daughter Oyindamola, seven, says: “It will make a real difference. I am glad they have given something back.”
He was relieved by the petrol duty freeze, saying: “My car is like my legs, it’s what I need to move around. You don’t want to be priced out of getting to work.”
But he doubts the push to make public services more productive will work. He said: “They’ve pumped money into NHS IT for years and it hasn’t made a difference.” He is still undecided who to vote for.
High earners – £1,508 better off
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BETWEEN them, banker Nigel Owen, 46, and wife Marianne, 48, who works in recruitment, earn £180,000 a year.
The couple live in East Molesey, Surrey, with Marianne’s 16-year-old son.
Thanks to November’s cut in National Insurance they were £1,508 better off.
They will gain the same again following yesterday’s identical measure so they are more than £3,000 up overall.
Nigel says: “It was an OK Budget but is it going to change the election result? I doubt it.
“It helps us but I think more could have been done for the younger and less well-off.”
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Nigel backs the Chancellor’s plan to make the NHS more efficient though.
He says: We have great doctors and nurses but it’s the people you see wandering around with clipboards. If the NHS was a corporate company you could cut waste.
“I don’t see things getting better under Labour. I’m still planning on voting Tory.”
White van man – £228 better off
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STEPHEN JACKSON set up a removals company after finding himself out of work when the steelworks closed in Redcar, North Yorks.
He earns around £2,000 a month but pays up to £300 a week in fuel for his Ford van.
The 59-year-old, from Middlesbrough, was £294 a year better off because of November’s National Insurance cut for the self-employed and the new reduction will save him £228.
Stephen said: “The freeze in fuel duty is really good news for me. I spend around £1,200 a month filling my van.
“Any rise would have really hit me so I’m glad the Chancellor is giving the motorist a break. It makes a change.”
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If the 5p freeze in fuel duty had not been extended it would have cost him £480 a year.
He adds: “The reduction in NI is good news.
“It isn’t much but anything that leaves a bit more at the end of the month isn’t a bad thing. In the past I have always voted Labour, this time I’m undecided.
“I’d consider voting for the Tories but they still have a bit to do to convince me.”
Smoker – £93 better off
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HAIR stylist Rebecca Suter smokes 16 packs of cigarettes a month, costing £2,304 a year.
The one-off price rise of 40p a pack will mean the 46-year-old, of Loughborough, Leics, will be £77 a year worse off.
Being self-employed, single Rebecca benefits from the National Insurance cut, giving her an extra £170.
She says: “I’m going to have to try to cut down. I’ve started to try and vape a little. It’s not the same though.
“I remember saying years ago if cigarettes were ever over £10 per pack I would give up. But here I am and it’s going to be £16 per pack and I’m still smoking.
“I’ve still no idea how I’m going to vote. I don’t think you can change things overnight.
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“Rishi hasn’t had that long to prove himself and a lot has happened in the world, so he hasn’t had a chance.
“I won’t vote Labour anyway. I can’t stand Keir Starmer. It’s either I vote Tory or I don’t vote at all, and not voting is a waste of a vote.”
Analysis from The Sun’s Political Editor Harry Cole
SO Jeremy Hunt has fired the starting gun on the election campaign with a highly political Budget.
There was lots of shouting, but with the cupboard bare, not as many giveaways as a Chancellor would have liked on the eve of battle.
As he delivered what will likely be the last Budget before Britain goes to the polls this autumn, the glum faces behind him would suggest Tory MPs did not think it would be enough to turn around the Conservatives bleak numbers.
Even with some tax cuts, the problem the Government has is the tax burden still remains at the highest level since 1947.
And nobody really thinks that will be going down rather than up under Labour.
On top of that, the cold hard numbers are hard to spin.
The small print of the Budget shows an extra £186.6 billion in stealth taxes over the next five years: more than double what the combined £105.4 billion savings from the combined tax cuts last November and today.
Also painful is the OBR’s prediction that net migration is going to stay at around 300,000 indefinitely and Tory tax changes have actually made Britain’s workshy issues worse.
With more people being dragged into higher tax bands, it turns out fewer people are bothering to work harder.
But the shape of the Tory manifesto is coming into sight, with the abolition of National Insurance clearly going to feature as a flagship election issue.
The dual taxation of wages through NICS and Income Tax has been a long running quirk of our complex tax system, but abolishing it completely would be eye-wateringly expensive.
That said, Hunt has reduced it by 4p, down to 8p in the pound on earnings in just six months, hence why he is dangling the prospect of phasing it out completely over the five years.
But given there are huge bills coming down the path for national security, massive compensation payouts, and sustainable public spending, is that loss of Treasury revenue really credible?
I suspect we will spend a large part of the election campaign arguing about that.
Hunt peppered his hour-long speech with attacks on the opposition parties, and countless name checks – and real cheques – for key marginal seats the Government hope to save at the election.
Given how many times he mentioned his own seat in Surrey and the vicious pop at the Liberal Democrats who could oust him, its clear the Chancellor is as worried about his own seat as he is about anyone else’s.
It was the tetchiest Budget I can remember, with countless interventions from the Deputy Speaker needed after Labour heckled their way through the measures.
If this is the shape of the election campaign to come, it’s going to be a very long year…
