The Chancellor of the Exchequer recently presented his Budget to Parliament. It was a good Budget against a backdrop of difficult economic conditions, the Chancellor was able to announce forecasts for growth in our economy of 2.2% this year, which is the highest in Europe. We also had the latest unemployment figures which showed the unemployment rate had fallen again to 5.1%, compared to 10.2% in Europe, we also have the lowest number of young people claiming unemployment benefit since mid-1970s, which compares with the youth unemployment rate in the EU of 19.7%.
The deficit is now down by 2/3 and we still on track to make sure we eliminate the annual deficit by 2020. Compared to the state of many countries within the EU, e.g. Greece, Portugal and Cyprus, which are being propped up by the Eurozone.
There was good news on Business Rates, which can be crippling for businesses, and some 600,000 small businesses will be taken out of Business Rates altogether.
We cannot be complacent and we have challenging times ahead.
One thing that is not coming down is our contribution the European Union. £350m every week goes to the EU whilst we remain members and I always ask what we get back for our money? I would quite like an honest straight answer as to what that £350m of British taxpayers' money buys us in Europe every week. Could not we spend that money better?
What was also in the Budget, which not many people have picked up, is that the amount of money we are going to be paying to the EU in 2016/17 has been estimated at £11.8bn, last year at the Budget is was estimated at £9.4bn, so the bill has gone up on the quiet and we do not know what we get for that money.
There is another important area where we just do not have control in this country and that is over VAT, which brings in £138bn a year, but it is EU that sets the rates at which VAT is set and what it applies to.
There are two high profile examples of where the Europe has got it absolutely wrong and we as taxpayers are powerless to do anything about it.
First, there is the notorious 'Tampon Tax', which I did a podcast on a few months ago (https://youtu.be/B2M2857NjOE), where at the moment there is VAT charged on women's sanitary products, but it is not a luxury and is a nonsense. It is Europe that does not allow us to do anything about that.
Second, there has been a court ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) which said energy efficient products, such as solar panels, which the Government wants to see more of, as we want to be more environmentally friendly, must be charged at the higher 20% rate of VAT, not the lower 5% rate the Government had originally placed on them. Unless we can do something about this then the VAT is going to go up 15%. This is a nonsense, I thought the EU was all about being environmentally friendly. We've certainly got a government that takes it responsibilities to the environment very seriously, we want more people to insulate their house, more people to use solar power and do more energy efficient things.
There were good things in the Budget, but there could have been more good things if they were under our control rather than the control of Brussels.
I was disappointed that the Chancellor used the independent Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) to claim that there would be uncertainty if we voted for Brexit on 23 June. In fact, the OBR said no such thing and it is ironic that an independent group are being used to promote the vote 'Remain' campaign. The OBR have said themselves that it is absolutely not for them to make a judgement on the implications of Brexit.
One thing the OBR did say was that the Government was not going to meet its immigration targets largely because we have 250,000 people coming from Europe each year and we have the crisis in the EU of the 1.8m refugees coming to EU countries over the last year alone and that is not likely to improve over the next year.
At the end of the day, I think it is our politicians answerable to our constituents (you can vote us out whenever you like, you cannot do that we faceless bureaucrats in Europe) are the ones who should make important financial decisions for our country. At the moment, too often we are hampered from doing that by EU rules, regulations and faceless bureaucrats, which is why on the 23 June we need to vote 'Leave' to take back control.