Bradford residents' reaction to Chancellor George Osborne's 2013 budget (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Bradford residents' reaction to Chancellor George Osborne's 2013 budget

6:00am Thursday 21st March 2013 in News

Home buyers, tax-payers and beer drinkers are among the winners of George Osborne’s 2013 budget.

People in Bradford will be able to buy a typical first home with a deposit of £5,000, the Chancellor pledged. Mr Osborne unveiled a ‘Help to Buy’ scheme for those unable to find the hefty deposits now demanded by mortgage lenders – helping 215,000 people a year nationwide.

The scheme will allow both first-time buyers and people trying to move up the housing ladder to get a mortgage with a five per cent deposit. In Bradford, where a typical flat costs about £100,000, a buyer would be forced to find £5,000 instead of up to £20,000, as now demanded.

And about 174,000 workers in the district could have £700 a year more in their pockets compared to 2010 – thanks to a change in income tax.

In addition, Mr Osborne confirmed September’s planned fuel duty rise has been scrapped.

He announced a planned 3p rise in beer duty tax was being scrapped and replaced by a 1p cut on a pint of beer.

But Mr Osborne painted a gloomy picture for the economy as the official growth forecast was slashed in half and he admitted the recovery was taking “longer than anyone hoped”.

People in the district approaching retirement will benefit a year earlier from the new single tier pension when it is introduced. It means some 400,000 more people nationally will be able to qualify for it. That number includes about 85,000 women who would have missed out because their state pension age was rising at the same time as the reform was being introduced.

Women born between April 6 and July 5, 1953, would not have been eligible for the £144 flat rate pension if it had not come in until 2017.

The single tier pension runs alongside the Government’s automatic enrolment into workplace pensions reforms to encourage more people to save for their retirement. The budget also included lowering the cap on families paying for social health care from £75,000 to £72,000.

Keighley Conservative MP Kris Hopkins said he believed the Chancellor had played “a responsible but creative hand in what continues to be an incredibly challenging economic climate”.

Scrapping of the planned rise in fuel duty and of the beer duty escalator was also welcome, he said, as was the announcement of a £10,000 personal tax allowance from next year which he described as “tremendous news for everyone in work”.

“All in all, I am very pleasantly surprised at what the Chancellor has been able to do given the very tight financial constraints upon him,” he said.

Bradford East Liberal Democrat MP David Ward said he believed 174,000 workers in the city would be a total of £700-a-year better off, compared with 2010.

"Furthermore, this means that 20,330 low-earners in Bradford will have been lifted out of paying income tax altogether thanks to Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government,” he said.

“While cutting income tax will not solve all problems, in a period when times are tough it will significantly help to give people in Bradford real, practical help.”

Stephen Wright, president of Bradford Chamber of Commerce, welcomed some measures to help stimulate growth in the economy, but said he was disappointed there was no freeze in business rates.

“Reducing corporation tax will provide more assurance and stability for business and therefore improve confidence.

“The backdrop of the deficit reduction plan and dismal growth forecasts has to mitigate our enthusiasm somewhat, but help has been offered in some straightforward but hopefully effective ways," he said.

“The house-building and infrastructure programme has also been long-called for and will help get the property and construction sector back on its feet.

“Cutting national insurance for employers is particularly welcomed as good for smaller businesses."

But he added: "On the downside, we called for a three-year freeze in business rates and an extension in entrepreneurs’ relief on Capital Gains Tax, but you can’t have it all ways. It’s very rare to get everything you want in statements like this and so some things that we hoped to see have not happened; but the Government is fairly restricted fiscally and so generally what the Chancellor has done is applauded.”

Grandparents Cyril and Margaret Davies, both 84, of Oakworth, near Keighley, say the budget is still leaving them and other pensioners out in the cold.

The couple, who are active members of the Keighley & Bradford Pensioners’ Association, are disappointed nothing has been done to increase their heating allowance.

Mr Davies, a retired university senior technician, said he is luckier than most because on top of his state pension he gets a small second pension from his working days.

“They cut the heating allowance back from £400 to £300 last year and that’s where they’ve left it. It’s not been increased, it’s stayed where it is. I’m disappointed at that.”

He added: “Personally we’re not touched much by this year’s budget, but I’m sure there will be others we know who will be telling us they will be worse off.”

However the cap on care costs, originally planned to be set at £75,000 and introduced in 2017, that will now be introduced in 2016 at a level of £72,000 is not much comfort either, said Mr Davies.

“Our savings are very small compared to what we’ve got in the house. If one of us was ever in the unfortunate position of having to go into social care to end our days we’d still have to put our house up for auction. Lowering the cap by £3,000 isn’t going to make any difference to most people round here.”

Working mum Nikki Bearton says her family could be in for a treat thanks to the Chancellor’s budget.

She only works part-time at Asda near her Little Horton home and says because she earns under £10,000 and won’t be having to pay any more income tax, it will leave her with about £700 extra a year to spend.

“I’ll be able to do a lot with £700, maybe a holiday or get some work done to the house.”

Miss Brearton, whose boyfriend Carl Sprogis does agency work, also shares her home with daughter Emily, 14, and son Jack, 17.

“This is my own house so the fact it’ll be easier for people to put deposits down to get on the property ladder won’t mean much to me, but it possibly will for Jack. There’s no way I could ever help him with a deposit so he’ll have to provide it himself or with whoever he buys with. At least it would be more manageable.”

Miss Bearton, who has a car, added: “Scrapping the 3p fuel duty is helpful. I don’t go too far in the week, but every little bit helps when it comes to saving money.

“On the whole I’d say it was a pretty unremarkable budget. Apart from the £700 I stand to gain, there wasn’t anything else that made me want to do a jig about the room or tear my hair out.”

Bradford brewer Chris Bee, who runs the Salamander brewery in Dudley Hill, welcomed George Osborne’s decision to scrap a 6p rise in duty on a pint of beer before cutting the cost of a pint by 1p, but he said it was too late to save the decline in the country’s pub trade.

Mr Bee and business partner Dan Gent produce about 9,000 pints a week supplying more than 200 customers nationwide.

“What’s been announced in the budget is good news, but it’s long overdue. Beer duty has been escalating for quite a few years. It’s been the death knell for a lot of pubs. That’s why they’ve boarded up and disappeared and been turned into other businesses or flats. The price cut won’t bring them back.

“I’ll have to pay a bit less duty next month so I’m happy with that and hopefully cheaper pints will get people back into the pubs that have survived.

“We’re seeing a new wave of younger real ale drinkers so this budget news could keep us on the right track.”

Working mum Nikki Bearton says her family could be in for a treat thanks to the Chancellor’s budget.

She only works part-time at Asda near her Little Horton home and says because she earns under £10,000 and won’t be having to pay any more income tax, it will leave her with about £700 extra a year to spend.

“I’ll be able to do a lot with £700, maybe a holiday or get some work done to the house.”

Miss Brearton, whose boyfriend Carl Sprogis does agency work, also shares her home with daughter Emily, 14, and son Jack, 17.

“This is my own house so the fact it’ll be easier for people to put deposits down to get on the property ladder won’t mean much to me, but it possibly will for Jack. There’s no way I could ever help him with a deposit so he’ll have to provide it himself or with whoever he buys with. At least it would be more manageable.”

Miss Bearton, who has a car, added: “Scrapping the 3p fuel duty is helpful. I don’t go too far in the week, but every little bit helps when it comes to saving money.

“On the whole I’d say it was a pretty unremarkable budget. Apart from the £700 I stand to gain, there wasn’t anything else that made me want to do a jig about the room or tear my hair out.”

Single mum-of-two Carla Birch is thinking about quitting her 20-cigarette a day habit after news 26p is to be added on to each pack, which already cost her £6.46 a day.

Living on the Allerton estate in an Incommunities rented home with her 11-year-old son Haris and eight-year-old daughter Aneerha, the 29-year-old has just set herself up as a childminder with six youngsters in her care. She says although it is early days she does not expect to make much more than £10,000 a year, which under the new budget means she would not have to pay any income tax on her earnings.

A cut in what small businesses have to pay for employer’s contributions would also make taking on someone else to work with her in future an option, she said.

She said: “Not having to pay income tax on just under the first £10,000 I earn is going to be helpful.”