Budget 2013 - More of the same says opposition (From Daily Echo)

Budget 2013 - More of the same says opposition

9:16am Thursday 21st March 2013 in Politics

LABOUR leader Ed Miliband attacked a “more of the same” Budget from “downgraded Chancellor” George Osborne.

He seized on growth forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility which had been slashed from 1.2 per cent this year to 0.6 per cent and said “Britain deserves better” than it was getting from the coalition Government.

“Every Budget he comes to this House and things are worse, not better for this country,” Mr Miliband said.

“Compared to last year’s Budget: growth last year down, growth this year down, growth next year down, growth in 2015 down.

“All he offers is more of the same: higher borrowing, lower growth ... a more of the same Budget from a downgraded Chancellor.” He added: “Britain deserves better than this.”

Mr Osborne was cheered by MPs from both the Tory and Liberal Democrat wings of the coalition.

The Lib Dems’ cherished policy of a £10,000 income tax threshold will be introduced from 2014 and Tories cheered a £2,000 allowance for firms before paying employer National Insurance contributions, a move Mr Osborne described as “taking tax off jobs”.

But Mr Osborne told MPs there were “no easy answers” to the country’s economic problems. He said: “This is a Budget for people who aspire to work hard and get on.

“It’s a Budget for people who realise there are no easy answers to problems built up over many years, just the painstaking work of putting right what went so badly wrong.

“Together with the British people we are slowly but surely fixing our country’s economic problems.”

But the Leader of the Opposition said “bad news just does not stop”

coming from the Chancellor’s budgets.