budget 2015

A big budget. With some notable implications for all of us and a flourish about the introduction of the concept of the living wage. I can see pluses and minuses for rural communities, help for small businesses, which is more significantly represented in rural areas is a clear positive, persistence with the selling off housing association homes is bad. In many senses the rural service implications are yet to be revealed as this brief summary suggests when the other half of the equation is revealed in terms of government department budgets later in the year.

The budget includes: a fresh clampdown on public sector pay which will be limited will to 1% a year for the next four years; a living wage announcement which should see some low-earners see their pay go up from £6.50 an hour now to £7.20 an hour next year; and Councils in England and Wales are likely to be allowed to relax Sunday trading laws.

The chancellor unveiled “just under half” of the £37bn in cuts he says are needed to clear the deficit by 2018, with £12bn from the welfare budget and £5bn from a crackdown on tax avoidance. The remainder of the savings will come from cuts to government departments to be announced in the autumn.

Osborne said he would smooth the path of austerity over the next five years, eliminating the “rollercoaster” spending plans that were widely criticised after his March budget. “We should cut the deficit at the same pace as we did in the last parliament; we shouldn’t go faster, we shouldn’t go slower,” he said. Under these new plans, the public sector finances will not move into surplus until 2019-20, a year later than previously expected. The deficit on the public finances will be £69.5bn this year, slightly lower than the £75bn the OBR expected in March. It will then be slightly higher than expected for the next three years, before swinging to a £10bn surplus in 2019-20.