Announcing what he called a “Budget for Britain’s future,” the Chacellor for the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, who is favored to replace Tony Blair as the head of the Labour Party (who knows when?), today delivered his 10th annual budget address.
It’s interesting to look at where British taxpayers’ money is spend by the government, and what a small percentage of it is spent on defense.
The budget also proposes free national bus travel (in England only) for every pensioner and disabled person beginning in April 2008. I’m not sure why this applies only to England, though perhaps Wales and Scotland’s quasi-governments provide such services already. I have no idea.
Very importantly, the budget includes an increase of the “climate change levy” from April 2007, as well as the introduction of a new zero rate of vehicle excise duty for the small number of cars with the very lowest carbon emissions *and a new top band for the most polluting new cars.*
(A friend in Ware just bought a new, massive Rover. Not sure he’ll like the excise duty. Serves him right. <wink>)
But most importantly: the budget freezes the duty on spirits, sparkling wine, and cider! Cheers! 🙂
I understand that one car – the diesel version of the tiny Swatch town car – is the only one that qualifies for the zero band of vehicle excise duty (car road tax). It is open to question how much under £10 a month (£210 pa) for even the largest will have much effect on purchasing these vehicles, bearing in mind this is less than one percent of their purchase price when new. Brown again deferred the introduction of increase in fuel prices to September. Fixed increases of inflation plus were introduced by the Conservatives as the “fuel price escalator” to deliberately reduce usage but Brown abolished this to make it inflation only and in the past couple of years has deferred the introduction because of the overall fuel cost increases (the tax on vehicle fuel is in two elements, the fixed amount per litre excise duty and VAT at a standard 17.5% so when the price goes up the VAT yield also rises)
Better environmentally was the reduction in the tax on fuels containing a minimum percentage of bio-ethanol and bio-diesel.
The free bus travel is a slight misnomer, in England a government grant allows half price off-peak travel on local buses for pensioners and the disabled. These passes are issued by the local councils and some have made further concessions to allow free travel in their area for their residents. There is an agreement to recognise other areas’ passes but only to reduce the cost to a child fare (ie half price). This measure increases the grant to allow free travel and does away with the local variations.
You are quite right, in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland the decision on this is devolved to the Parliament and national Assemblies. That leaves the absurd position of this measure being announced by the UK Chancellor who represents a Scottish constituency. In addition this measure relating only to England will be voted on by the whole house so the decision will be made for England by MPs from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland while English MPs cannot vote on the same proposal in relation to those areas.