At the risk of being seen as a killjoy, Rishi is just wallpapering over the cracks. With a bit of window dressing. And these cracks threaten the structural integity of the country...
Stamp Duty cut? Only until March 21, and will really benefit only those paying half a mill for a house...
“However, this measure is unlikely to solve the inherent issues in the housing market. The cut will most help buyers in high-value areas, which are mainly in London, the south-east and south-west of England. The average first home in northern regions is below £150,000 and around 90% of first-time buyers in England won’t see any benefit from this change.” (Yorkshire Building Soc).
Furthermore, what is likely to happen is that the house sellers will simply stick another 3-5% on their asking prices, so the buyers don’t really win. They will see the benefit of saving up to £15k in hard cash that won’t go the Govt in tax at the point of sale, which is satisfying though. As I say, only the rich south will really benefit and the rest of us will be subsidising their tax savings.
Hospitality discount...
The chancellor announces an “eat out to help out discount” to encourage consumers to spend at restaurants and cafes. Meals eaten at any participating businesses, from Mondays to Wednesdays in August, will be 50% off up to a maximum discount of £10 per head for everyone, including children.
It’s like some shitty standard Pizza Hut or Nando’s deal to fill a few tables on the quiet days of the week, not actually when you really want to go out... which are Fridays and Saturdays. You can always find deals like this normally (2 main meals for the price of one, free bottle of wine etc) for the unpopular evenings. The only difference is that you can now find them at all establishments, rather than just the crappy ones. And, again, restaurants will stick a few quid on the price of dishes.
Perhaps the worthwhile initiatives are the Green Benefits and Job Encouragement schemes for the young.
Green stuff...Vouchers worth £5,000 and up to £10,000 for poorer families will be made available out of a £2bn pot to retrofit homes with insulation, helping to cut carbon emissions. (There have plenty of these grant schemes over the years. How many will take this up now?).
Job schemes... “Sunak announces the “kickstart” job creation scheme for young people. The government will pay the wages of new young employees for six months. There will be an initial £2bn to fund hundreds of thousands of jobs. Sunak says there will be no cap on the number of places available.”
But these low wage jobs for the kids are not going to fully offset the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost through forced redundancies over the next year. And the time limit of 6 months means that the company can just fire them at the end of 6 months when the Govt pay is stopped, with no comeback as one has little job protection for the first year.
So... I am rather underwhelmed as none of Rishi’s schemes seem to be radical for the country and, personally, none seem to affect me, though I hope that I am not likely to be one in need of that help. What is concerning is that this might stoke up inflation.
Nice try, Rishi, but I think we might be heading for a real “winter of discontent”.
....
!
too easy.
