Political opinion with Cllr Duncan Crow: Delaying difficult budget decisions was a costly mistake

The recent budget was a missed opportunity to get to grips with the tough decisions needed to make the government finances sustainable, and to get our economy back on track. Many suspect the kicking the can down the road at this budget was putting party before country, by not wanting to make any difficult decisions in advance of a possible snap general election that Labour HQ have pencilled in for the first half of next year.  

The longer difficult decisions are put off, the worse the outcomes are going to be. If an early general election is called by the Prime Minister, I suspect he will dress it up by saying he needs a mandate to take big decisions, which will be code for big tax rises. A government that was truly putting country before party would be making the decisions needed right now, especially when it comes to welfare and defence.

There is a broad political consensus on the need to raise defence spending, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating and here, Labour are acting too slowly. The Chancellor John Healey previously resigned as Defence Secretary because defence spending was not increased to 3% of GDP by his predecessor Rachel Reeves. He failed to deliver in his own budget and our country will be less safe for longer as a result.

The only way to restore stability to the public finances is to bring down the ballooning deficit. Conservative policy is to cut the welfare bill by £36 billion, including reinstating the two-child benefit cap that Labour removed and introducing a Get to Work programme and Subsistence Allowance, as part of a determined effort to help get people who can work off benefits and into work.

Additionally, cutting the size of the civil service to its 2016 size, reducing the overseas aid budget, and ending the use of asylum hotels, will help deliver savings to ensure greater investment in defence as well as enabling half of every pound saved to go towards cutting the deficit, reducing the huge amount of interest paid on government borrowing.