Budget preview

The Labour manifesto promised to “end mass dependence on emergency food parcels which is a moral scar on our society”. October’s Budget is the new government’s big chance to begin the process of transforming this promise into reality.

The government is trying to manage expectations as it argues convincingly that both public finances and public services are strained. It talks a great deal about the “£22bn black hole” of predictable spending for this year that was not budgeted for.

This hole was hard to spot before the election, however the government is being much less open about the bigger longer-term problem that was obvious before the election.

The March pre-election budget contained a 5-year plan which included deep cuts to public services in 2028-29.

These were necessary to meet the government’s self-imposed fiscal rule that over the next five years debt as a proportion of the UK economy will fall.

No-one seriously believed these cuts would be feasible, and no plans were drawn up to explain how they could happen. The Office of Budgetary Responsibility’s chief described them as “worse than fiction” – on the grounds that someone at least bothers to write fiction.

Neither major party was prepared to engage with this issue prior to the election, because it raised the unavoidable choice between cuts, taxes or borrowing that no-one wanted to answer. This Budget will tell us how this government intends to address the issue.

However, the promise to end dependence on foodbanks, and the mass destitution that represents, was made in the full knowledge of these financial constraints and that achieving this aim would require investment.

This moral scar is urgent, especially for over 1 million children whose futures are being degraded by destitution this year. The first steps cannot be delayed or set aside.

The Methodist Church is part of the “Guarantee our Essentials” campaign, which has a simple ask that the benefit system provides enough so that families that afford the essentials and avoid destitution.

It is shocking that this even needs to be campaigned for. The campaign has offered affordable stepping stones along the way to this aim – such as setting a floor under which family’s incomes cannot fall – which would cheaply and quickly reduce levels of destitution.

The analogy of destitution as a scar on society is emotive, but it falls down because unlike most scars, it is possible, with commitment and resources, to remove it. When the Chancellor stands up to deliver her first budget she must begin that process.

Paul Morrison, Policy Adviser, The Methodist Church