Jeremy Hunt to cut National Insurance from 12% to 10% from January
Jeremy Hunt’s eagerly anticipated Budget will not save Rishi Sunak from defeat in next year’s general election, former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe has predicted.
Mr Hunt delivered his statement to a packed House of Commons today. Measures included cutting employee national insurance from 12 percent to 10 percent from January 6, the axing of class two national insurance for the self-employed, and increasing pensions by 8.5 percent.
However, Ms Widdecombe, who served in several ministerial roles in the Government of John Major, was distinctly underwhelmed.
The former Tory MP for Maidstone, more recently a Brexit Party MEP, told Express.co.uk: "Nobody does a pre-election budget and wears a hair shirt.
"I mean it was bound to be a giveaway Budget and thus far, so predictable."
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Jeremy Hunt and Ann Widdecombe (Image: GETTY)
However, if Prime Minister Mr Sunak, whose party is lagging behind in the polls, was expecting the statement to rescue the Tories from defeat, he was likely to be disappointed, continued Ms Widdecombe.
She explained: "I think the only people it might shore up are wavering Tories and they might decide to give them another chance.
"But as for anybody else? No, I can't see anyone, including Tories who've already left, being so wowed by this they want to vote Conservative."
Ms Widdecombe, who is now a member of Reform UK, added: "This is damage limitation.
"And to that extent, if that’s what you're aiming for, damage limitation, it's a pretty good Budget.
Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves responds for Labour (Image: PA)
"But damage limitation generally involves losing, hence the name. Limitation not elimination.
She added: "I think they're certainly on course to lose. It’s nothing to do, actually with this budget.
"But just simply because there's so much infighting, so much stupidity over immigration, they haven't made any strides at all.
"You know, the things that people care about, they're just not dealing with and haven't dealt with.
"And this is now the last chance saloon and there isn't much of a chance."
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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in Downing Street (Image: PA)
Mr Hunt told MPs: "In the face of global challenges, we have halved inflation, reduced our debt and grown our economy.
As a country we are sticking to a plan that is working.
"This Autumn Statement for Growth will attract ￡20 billion additional business investment a year in the next decade.”
He concluded: "We are delivering the biggest business tax cut in modern British history; the largest ever cut to employee and self-employed National Insurance; and the biggest package of tax cuts to be implemented since the 1980s.
"An Autumn Statement for a country that has turned a corner. An Autumn Statement for Growth, which I commend to the House."
MPs in the House of Commons earlier today (Image: PA)
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Responding, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: "What has been laid bare today is the full scale of the damage that this Government has done to our economy over 13 years."
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Ms Reeves said working people are "still worse off" despite promises from the Government, before saying: "From their failure to uprate income tax or national insurance bands, to forcing councils to raise council tax, the Conservatives have pushed the costs of their failure onto others.
"But the British people won't be taken for fools.
"They know that what has been announced today owes more to the cynicism of a party desperate to cling on to power than the real priorities of this high-tax, low-growth Conservative Government."
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