People in Brighton were desperate for a budget which invested in our crumbling public services.
Yet all they got from this failing government was more austerity, more spending cuts and tax cuts that will mostly benefit the more well-off.
There will be some relief from families that the vital lifeline of the Household Support Fund has been extended a further six months although there will be fear about what comes after that.
And while the government’s crackdown on tax from holiday lettings will also be welcomed in a city which has 3,000 Airbnb listings and some of the highest rents and house prices in the country, it falls far short of what we need to tackle the housing crisis.
But this was a budget that completely let the people of Brighton down. There was no new investment in local councils, hospitals and schools.
There was nothing to help renters or create more affordable homes. There was no support to insulate cold, damp homes.
Climate change was never even mentioned.
This final Tory budget was yet another lost opportunity to tackle both the cost of living and climate crises.
Future generations will not forgive this government for failing to invest now in liveable homes and a liveable planet.
Caroline Lucas is the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion.
The 2p cut in national insurance will give the average worker over £400 a year. Isn’t that a help to those renting? Indeed a help to those paying larger mortgages too.
Yes, more would be great. But it’s far from nothing…..
In monetary terms the NI reductions are more than offset by continuing the freeze on income tax thresholds.
Please oh please Ms Lucas… enough is enough. Your retoric is stale with your finger permanetly pointing in one direction. For the folks of Brighton/Hove, have you never thought that the council (Labour and Green) have truly fowled things up and continue to do so since they took power. This constituency (Yours Ms Lucas) must be one of the most affluent in the country and yet is heading in the same direction of another Labour council… Birmingham. What is it about you lot? Everybody is to blame except yourselves. The council is nearly bankrupt and it is no fault of this government, but the very people heading… this headless chicken, with a spending spree on diversity that is just one of the many accumalating errors by a council voted in by a student body who are gluttons when preaching against any sitting government. I believe the vote should only be available to voters who LIVE in the area and not students. These have homes elsewhere and are in town for only a short time. They must not hold the reason why Brighton/Hove have suffered under this motley outfit for years.
I’m ok with students voting if they nominate here to do so & don’t double dip in voting terms.
But I agree with your assertion regarding the numerical impact of 2 universities overwhelmingly voting green to such a degree that ( without checking actual registered voters in the ward or the combined roll count of Brighton & Sussex) that any vote elsewhere has a statistically high barrier to overcome.
The excuse was always that campus buildings were maintained within the central Brighton & ward boundaries. These have been sold off to a large degree and I think it is time we came together to petition for a boundary reassessment as imho there is a legitimate claim of unfair & artificially skewed bloc voting.
Certainly won’t suggest that the greens don’t have, non university based, support in the ward. Merely that thousands of votes impact the wards voters coming from locations where there are one and two other wards between them & the rest of the wards boundaries
The real issue is net immigration to the UK is outstripping increases to housing stock and incidentally increases in demands on infrastructure that has also not kept pace. This coupled with a drop in productivity has led us to where we are. Immigration is not fuelling economic growth.
However successive governments have talked about limiting immigration but seem to be unable to deliver. Every time a politician or councillor uses expressions like “city of sanctuary” remember that it has a price.
As far as Brighton goes we need a council that encourages businesses to come here or start here to generate wealth rather than pursue a policy of managing down diminishing services and just pointing a finger at government, shrugging shoulders and moving onto another vanity project concerning roads or critical race theory.
Labour has a chance to break the downward spiral but all the time the previous green council and the national Tory government is used as an excuse for failure then we will never be happy. Get on with it, get the people behind you, and create a local economy.
Heres a thought, maybe if the goverment and local councils hired merit over diversity excerises, maybe we’d be somewhere little better? We don’t need everyone to be represted in the public sector, we just need them to be fit enough to excute thier jobs properly without excuses.
The root cause isn’t lack of housing, it’s the unstoppable population increase due to net (illegal) immigration. Immigrants need a place to live in as well Carol. Strange how you don’t ever mention the cost of illegal immigration to the working tax payers.
You can build to the edge of the UK but as long as net immigration is high and inceasing nobody will ever solve the housing crises. Too many people after too few houses, with too little viable buildable space left.
People coming in unchecked is and will always be at a far higher pace then the ability to ever build houses, and where is all the space Carol? The space to keep building keeps reducing after each build.
You also want more social housing. Where does the fund come for that? That’s another bill for the working tax payers to settle. The thing about money is it has to come from somewhere or someone. So someone somewhere else will always be losing out. Socialism isn’t as fair as you think after all.
Erm, building lots of new homes is not going to help the ‘climate crisis’ Caroline, but make it worse. There are few things more destructive to the environment than new builds and their oversized carbon construction footprints. You should be pressing for all empty spaces above shops and commercial premises to be converted for a fraction of the carbon release, and the cost.