The Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Torbay, Kevin Foster, has welcomed yesterday’s Budget as another step on the road to prosperity in Torbay. The Conservatives have a plan that is working, and a Budget that works for you. It shows:
· A growing economy - with Britain growing faster than any other major advanced economy.
· Record numbers of jobs – with 1.9 million more people now have the security of work.
· Rising living standards – with families an average of £900 better off in 2015 than in 2010.
· The deficit down by more than a half as a share of the economy.
· Our national debt starting to fall as a share of the economy - so we fix the roof while the sun is shining.
The Budget sets out the choice for Torbay between a long term economic plan that is working or parties that offer no real plan for the future and the prospect of Ed Miliband in Downing St, supported by Alex Salmond and Nick Clegg. It shows how a future Conservative Government would secure a better future for you, your family and Britain by:
· Choosing stability – committing to run a budget surplus and keep our debt share falling.
· Choosing jobs - backing business and skills so we can achieve full employment, and supporting pubs and brewers by cutting tax on beer, cider, and whisky.
· Choosing the whole nation – investing for a truly national recovery that is felt in all parts of the country by building a Northern Powerhouse and backing economic plans in every region.
· Choosing responsibility – helping savers with the Personal Savings Allowance, abolishing savings tax altogether for 17 million people, and giving savers more freedoms with Flexible ISAs - so we build the economy on savings, not debt.
· Choosing aspiration – with a new Help to Buy ISA for first time buyers. If you save up to £12,000 towards a deposit, the government will contribute up to £3,000 – helping more people realise the dream of owning their own home.
· Choosing families – cutting income tax for 27 million people and continuing the fuel duty freeze so families can be more financially secure.
Kevin commented: “We have been working through our long term economic plan, and the local economy has been steadily improving, with the development at White Rock making real progress and companies like Gooch & Housego expanding.”
“This Budget is another step on the road from austerity to prosperity - with support for savers, lower taxes for people in work and a clear plan to make sure Britain pays its way in the world.
“Five years ago, Britain was spending and borrowing too much, too many people were out of work and our economy was on its knees. That’s why there is a critical choice facing us this year: return to the chaos of the past or stick with a plan that is working and choose a more prosperous future. We must choose the future.”
Budget Highlights.
ECONOMIC FORECASTS: Britain is growing, creating jobs and paying its way – Britain is walking tall again
We have met the debt target we set out in our first Budget: debt falling as a share of national income in 2015/16. Thanks to the hard work and sacrifice of the British people, we will end this Parliament with Britain’s national debt share falling.
o Labour put taxpayers’ money into banks. We are getting it back. Labour increased debt by £192 billion bailing out the banks. We are launching a sale of £13 billion of the mortgage assets we still hold from the bailouts of Northern Rock and of Bradford and Bingley, and we will sell at least a further £9 billion of Lloyds shares in the coming year.
Borrowing has been revised down. The deficit will halve to 5% this year, then fall to 4% in 15/16, then 2%, then 0.6% – lower than forecast in December. We will run a surplus of 0.3% in 19/20, or £7 billion. These forecasts will only be achieved if we deliver £30 billion of further savings by 2017/18 – as set out in the Charter for Budget Responsibility. We do this by: £13 billion from government departments; £12 billion from welfare; £5 billion from tax avoidance, evasion, and aggressive tax planning. Now other parties must set out their approach: would they borrow and tax more?
Growth has been revised up. Despite weaker world and European growth, the OBR have revised up our growth forecasts. The UK will grow 2.5% this year (up from 2.4% at the Autumn Statement).This growth is broad based: business investment has grown four times faster than household consumption, manufacturing output has grown more than 4.5 times faster than it did in the entire decade before the crisis and, over the last year the North has grown faster than the South.
Living standards are now higher than when we came to office. The OBR forecasts living standards (real household disposable income) will be higher in 2015 than in 2010 by an average £900 per family, and grow strongly every year for the rest of the decade.
Employment is at a record high - 1,000 more jobs have been created ever day under this government. Employment is at its highest rate since records began, with the claimant count rate at its lowest since 1975. The OBR forecasts unemployment will fall to 5.3 per cent this year, down almost 3 percentage points from the rate we inherited. Employment is growing fastest in the North West and a job is created every 10 minutes in the Midlands. 80% of jobs are full-time, and 80% of jobs are in high-skilled occupations.
SUPPORTING SAVERS: four steps to move us from a country build on debt to a country built on savings and investment
A new Personal Savings Allowance to abolish taxes for 17 million savers. Millions pay tax on their savings even though they have already paid tax when they earned the money. From next year our new tax-free allowance for the first £1,000 of the interest basic rate taxpayers earn on savings will be completely tax free – taking around 95 per cent out of savings taxation altogether. The allowance is £500 for higher rate taxpayers.
Help to Buy ISA to help people save for their first deposit. This new ISA will mean for every £200 a first time buyer saves, the government will give a bonus of £50 – up to £3,000. If you save up to £12,000 for the deposit on your first home, then you will get up to £3,000. For a basic rate taxpayer it’s the equivalent of not paying any income tax on £15,000 savings towards a first home.
A new Flexible ISA to encourage saving by trusting people with their hard-earned money. From the autumn, people will have complete freedom to take money out of an ISA and put it back in later in the year without losing their tax-free entitlement.
More freedom for pensioners over their savings. We will extend new pension freedoms to the 5 million pensioners who already have an annuity – meaning pensioners will be able to sell their annuity income in return for a lump sum.
CUTTING TAXES: so people can keep more of the money they earn and businesses can grow to create jobs
Raise the personal tax-free allowance to £10,800 next year and £11,000 the year after, with the benefit passed on to higher rate taxpayers. This is a down payment on our commitment to raise the personal allowance to £12,500. It means the typical working taxpayer will be over £900 a year better off, 3.7 million of the lowest paid will be taken out of tax altogether and 27 million people will benefit. We will also raise the 40p tax rate to £43,300 in 2017/18.
Cutting beer duty, cider duty and duty on Scotch whisky, and freezing wine duty. We will cut beer duty for the third year in a row and taking another penny off the pint. We will cut cider duty by 2 per cent to support our West Country producers and cut the duty on Scotch whisky by 2 per cent. We are also freezing the duty on wine in cash terms.
Freezing fuel duty to help families and small businesses with the cost of filling up a car. We have again cancelled Labour’s planned September increase – delivering the longest duty freeze in 20 years. It saves a typical family around £10 when they fill up.
SCIENCE AND INNOVATION: ensuring we can become the most prosperous major economy in the coming generation
Supporting our creative industries. We will make our TV and film tax credits more generous, expand our support for video games and launch our new tax credit for orchestras, alongside our successful theatre tax break.
Ensuring future scientific success. New support for PhDs and research-based masters degrees, and £140 million for world class research across the UK into the infrastructure and cities of the future. We will also invest in the Internet of Things.
Digital infrastructure strategy. We’ll use up to £600 million to clear new spectrum bands for further auction to improve mobile networks, we’ll provide funding for free Wi-Fi in our public libraries and we’re committing to the ambition of bringing ultrafast broadband of at least 100 Megabits per second to nearly all homes in the country.
BACKING BUSINESS: because you can’t create jobs without successful businesses
A major review of business rates. Business rates have not kept pace with the needs of the modern economy, so we will review the structure of the system. The review will report back in time for Budget 2016.
Abolishing the annual tax return to make the tax system simpler. Millions of people will have their information automatically uploaded into new digital tax accounts. Those with the most complex tax affairs will be able to manage their account on-line. Businesses will feel they are paying a simple, single business tax with most having their information automatically received. We will abolish Class 2 National Insurances contributions for the self-employed – a massive simplification for five million people.
Supporting farmers by extending the averaging period. We are extending the period over which self-employed farmers can average their profits for income tax purposes from 2 to 5 years, to help protect farmers from the volatility they often face. Over 29,000 farmers could benefit – with an average individual gain of £950 a year.
CHARITIES AND ARMED FORCES: supporting the very best of British values
£75 million of LIBOR fines will be used to support charities. These include £10 million for air ambulances, £25 million to help our eldest veterans, including nuclear test veterans, and £1 million to support the commemoration of Agincourt.
Supporting good causes. We will treble the £15 million Church Roof Fund, increase how much charities can claim in automatic gift-aid on donations to £8,000 and introduce 'pensions for life' for widows, widowers and civil partners of police or firefighters.
A FAIRER TAX SYSTEM: we are creating a fairer tax system, proof that we are all in this together
Reducing the Lifetime Allowance for pension tax relief to £1 million. The cost of pension tax relief has risen by almost £4 billion over this parliament, so we will reduce the Lifetime Allowance by £250,000. Fewer than 4 per cent of pension savers currently approaching retirement will be affected, and we will index the Allowance with inflation from 2018.
Increasing the Bank Levy by £900 million. As our banking sector becomes more profitable it should make a bigger contribution. We’ll also stop banks from deducting from corporation tax the compensation they make to customers for products they mis-sold.
TAX AVOIDANCE: making sure everyone pays their fair share of tax
Continuing to crack down on tax evasion and avoidance. Measures include: legislating for the new Common Reporting Standard and the Diverted Profits Tax; amending corporation tax rules to prevent contrived loss arrangements; no longer allowing businesses to take account of foreign branches when reclaiming VAT on overheads; cracking down on agencies and umbrella companies that exploit the tax system to reduce their own costs; and a review on the use of deeds of variation to avoid inheritance tax.
South West
Helping first time buyers with Help to Buy ISAs. In the South West, this could help over 95,000 people to buy their first home in the next 5 years by giving them a 25 per cent bonus of the amount they have saved to help with the cost of their first home. Couples getting the full £3,000 will be able to receive a Government bonus worth 16 per cent of their deposit.
Backing savers with the Personal Savings Allowance. In the South West, giving basic rate taxpayers a £1,000 Personal Savings Allowance and higher rate taxpayers a £500 Personal Savings Allowance could remove up to 1.46 million people from savings tax liability.
Giving more choice to savers with New Flexible ISAs. In the South West, the latest figures show there were 2.17 million ISA holders that could benefit from being able to invest in a wider range of assets and 1.08 million cash ISA subscribers that could benefit from being able to take money out of their cash ISA and put it back later in the year without losing any of their tax-free entitlement.
Increasing the period over which self-employed farmers can average their profits for income tax purposes from two to five years. In the South West, this could benefit 4,400 individual farmers.
Delivering more homes by creating Housing Zones. New Housing Zones have been announced in South Bristol, with proposals for over 1,700 new homes; Hinkley, with proposals for over 1,000 new homes; Poole Power Station, with proposals for 1,350 new homes; Weston-Super-Mare, with proposals for 2,250 new homes; Foxhill, Bath, with proposals for over 1,300 new homes; Ashcurch, Gloucestershire, with proposals for 2,700 new homes; and Gloucester, with proposals for 1,110 new homes.
More funding for flood defences. As a result of decisions made in the Autumn Statement, an additional £11.6 million will be made available in the first four years of the flood and coastal erosion programme, enabling 37 schemes to be delivered at least a year sooner than originally planned and a further three new schemes to be included.
Improving roads by launching the Highways England Delivery Plan. The Delivery Plan sets out further detail on the roads investment programme from 2015-2021, setting out milestones for projects across the South West. It confirms that work on the A30 Temple to Higher Carblake scheme will be open by winter 2016-17. It also sets out next steps on the new schemes announced in December 2014, including dual carriageway on the A30 between Chiverton and Carland Cross, a new junction on the M49 at Avonmouth and improvements to the M5 at Bridgwater. All of these schemes which will have started construction by 2020.
Investing in transport. The Government will, subject to negotiations, shortly agree a Direct Award with First Great Western until 2019 to introduce the new Intercity Express Trains and improve rail services across the South West. It will undertake a study into whether there are viable options for reopening Plymouth Airport, and after 2018 it will reduce the toll paid by small goods vehicles and buses on the Severn River Crossing Toll.
Continuing to rebalance the economy by supporting Enterprise Zones to create jobs and attract investment. The Government will create a new Enterprise Zone at Plymouth South Docks Naval Yard, subject to the business case, potentially creating over 200 jobs in the marine industries sector.
Supporting small businesses with the Broadband Connection Voucher scheme. The scheme is open to all SMEs, charities, social enterprises and sole traders and provides up to £3,000 to support broadband connection. The scheme in Bristol, which has already issued 375 vouchers, is being extended for 12 months to March 2016. The scheme will be available in Exeter, Swindon, Plymouth, Bournemouth and Gloucester by 1 April.