Chancellor’s autumn budget: praise and criticism from all sides in Stroud

On Wednesday George Osborne unveiled his spending review which was designed to make Britain "the most prosperous and secure of all the major nations of the world".

The review set out public spending cuts for the rest of this parliament, including £12 billion from the welfare budget and £20billion in departmental cuts.

The austerity measures are part of the Chancellor’s plan to deliver an overall budget surplus of £10.1bn by 2019-20.

Unsurprisingly the issues that drew the most attention were the surprise U-turn on deeply unpopular £4 billion in cuts to working tax credits, as well as the decision to spare the police budget from the axe.

The spending review drew praise from Conservative MP for Stroud Neil Carmichael, who highlighted three key reasons the budget was ‘good news’ for Stroud.

“Firstly, he has announced the biggest house building programme by any government since the 1970s with a doubling of the housing budget to over £2 billion a year," he said.

“Our bold plan to back families who aspire to buy their own home will deliver 400,000 affordable new homes by the end of the decade.

“Secondly, a new national funding formula for schools will start to be introduced from 2017, phasing out the unfair system which means a child from a disadvantaged background in a school in Stroud could receive half the funding as a child in the same circumstances in another school in the country.

“Finally, we will still achieve £12 billion of welfare savings, but we have listened to concerns about changes to tax credits.

“We’ve had representations that these changes to tax credits should be phased in. Because of the marked improvement in the public finances, the simplest thing to do is not to phase these changes in, but to avoid them altogether.”

The Chancellor’s U-turn on tax credit cuts, which would have affected hundreds of families in Stroud, drew a sigh of relief from opponents.

Cllr Lesley Williams (Stonehouse), leader of the Labour Group on Gloucestershire county council, said: “This is a victory for every working family in the county; the Conservatives were threatening to cut family budgets by thousands of pounds just before Christmas.

“But down to constant pressure by the Labour Party and others we have succeeded in shaming the Government and Gloucestershire’s six MPs into backing down.”

Jojo Mehta from campaigning group 38 degrees Stroud, which campaigned fervently against the welfare cuts, also welcomed the reversal.

“The huge effort from many people here in Stroud meant that cutting tax credits became a very public problem for Osborne,” she said.

“It really shows that people power can create change.”

James Beecher from Stroud Against The Cuts welcomed the decision, but also raised other red flags about welfare cuts.

“It’s great news that some of the tax credit cuts have been scrapped, that will be a huge relief to a lot of people in Stroud,” he said.

“But unfortunately cuts to universal credit and other changes will still impact people massively. We’ve seen the Chancellor’s cuts over the last parliament already drive more people into poverty and cause huge levels of deprivation, this £12 billion in cuts to social security will only make things worse.”

A spokesman from women’s refuge, Stroud Beresford Group welcomed the funding initiatives for vulnerable women but called for long term solutions.

“On the one hand, more funding for women’s refuges and other services is always extremely welcome.

“This funding from the ‘tampon tax’ and another funding pot from the Department for Communities and Local Government will undoubtedly support many valuable organisations that support women affected by domestic abuse and sexual violence.

“However, these opportunities all offer short-term funding and do not address the longer term funding needs of women’s refuges.

“We hope that the government continues to place importance on these issues and looks at longer term solutions.”

Director of Visual Arts South West and trustee of Stroud Valleys Artspace (SVA), Grace Davies was happy with the Chancellor's announcement that cash going to the arts council will increase.

She said: “I’m pleased to hear that Arts Council England has been protected from cuts and that the Treasury see the great economic and social benefits of the arts.

"I hope that the cuts to local government won’t impact on the great work that arts organisations and museums are doing for the area.”

Molly Scott Cato MEP, the Green Party’s finance spokesperson from Stroud, also hit out at the large cuts to departmental budgets.

“It is clear that George Osborne’s harsh austerity agenda has failed even under its own terms,” she said. “While the deficit may be reducing, national debt continues to rise.

“Rather than a further £12bn in cuts the Chancellor could instead be seeking to plug the gap with taxation measures that spare the most vulnerable from more savage cuts.”

She also criticised the government’s ‘failure’ to tackle Europe’s carbon emissions and the Chancellor's decision to support fracking.

Another department set to take a big hit in funding is Local Government, with Mr Osborne asking council’s to find up to 30 per cent, some £4.1 billion, in savings over the next four years.

Despite the cuts, local authorities did have some things to celebrate, with new powers to levy two per cent in additional council tax for social care and a pledge to allow local government to set their business rates and collect the proceeds by the end of parliament.

Cllr Mark Hawthorne (Conservative), leader of Gloucestershire County Council, said: "I welcome the Chancellor's announcement.

“The most important thing for Gloucestershire is a successful economy, so we don't go back to the job losses and bust businesses we saw under Labour.

“It's also great he's putting a real focus on care for older people- something that's always been a priority for this council under the Conservatives.

"Obviously there's a lot of detail still to come out and we will be looking at the small print very closely.”

From a purely business point of view chairman of the Stroud and Cotswold Branch of the Federation of Small Businesses, Russell Warner said that there was some good, encouraging news in the Autumn Statement.

He said: “We particularly welcome the further extension of Small Business Rate Relief which is critical for many SME's.

“Many small companies operate on very tight margins so this relief isn’t just a bonus it is essential to their survival and prosperity and we would love to see the relief made permanent.

“Elsewhere we are also very pleased to see further investment in apprenticeships.

“Many local firms complain they just can’t get the staff they need so by taking on enthusiastic apprentices they can get the people they require backed up by well-focussed external training and support.

“The news of the huge increases in investment into road and house building- and other infrastructure projects - is also welcomed and we sincerely hope the Government will make an effort to ensure that small businesses get their fair share of the work involved," he said.

“And, talking of infrastructure, the announcement of significant increases in flood defence spending will, I am sure, be welcomed by many businesses in Gloucestershire – and of course by all of us who actually live here too.

“Finally the FSB has long campaigned for a major reform of business rates and the news that local councils will get to spend all their locally-raised business rates in the future is also a very interesting development.

“As with all these types of announcements made at the dispatch box, the devil will of course be in the detail but generally I think small businesses will give a cautious welcome to the statement and will wait with interest to see how the policies unveiled actually pan out in the coming weeks and months.”

Police officers in Stroud were another group to breathe a sigh of relief after the Chancellor announced there would be no real-term cuts to their budgets.

The force had been preparing to drop below 1000 officers for the first time ever to deal with planned funding reductions.

Gloucestershire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Martin Surl said the Chancellor’s decision was ‘as welcome as it was surprising’.

“We made all the provisions for a number of scenarios, all involving cuts, and thanks to the re-organisation carried out by the Chief Constable and her team, the force has been restructured with the aim of getting the very best results from the resources at their disposal,” he said.

“I hope we can now look forward to an extended period of stability.”

Other key points:

• Office for Budget Responsibility says public finances set to be £27bn better off by 2020 than forecast
• Government expected to borrow £8bn less than forecast as it aims to secure £10.1bn budget surplus by 2020
• Total spending to rise from £756bn this year to £821bn by 2019-20
• State spending - as a share of total output - to fall to 36.5% in 2020, down from 45% in 2010
• Overall day-to-day departmental spending to be cut by £20bn
• Policing, health, education, international aid and defence budgets protected
• Transport, energy, business and the environment among biggest losers, resource budgets falling by 37%, 22%, 17% and 15% respectively
• Underused courts to be sold off, raising £700m for new technology
• Defence budget to rise from £34bn to £40bn by 2020, with extra cash for the security services