In recent weeks I’ve written about the budget here in Nottinghamshire and the key decisions we’ve taken at County Hall to balance the books for the next two years - whilst continuing to invest in key services like roads and social care.
I’m proud of what we’ve been able to achieve, investing £4 million extra into roads, and in Mansfield an extra £3.4 million into youth centres to support residents in some of our most disadvantaged areas.
I’m constantly demanding additional funding to support local budgets whilst inflation is driving up prices, to ensure we can meet people’s expectations and deliver value for money. In January, I was able to secure an additional half a billion pounds for local authorities across the country to help with the increasing costs of social care – just as one example.
This week however, we’re looking to Westminster, where the Chancellor will be announcing the Government’s Spring Budget.
It comes after an Autumn statement where, after acknowledging that tough decisions needed to be made over the last couple of years in the wake of Covid and the Energy Crisis, the Chancellor was able to set us on the path of cutting taxes, growing the economy, and shrinking the size of the state.
In January, employee National Insurance was cut to 10 per cent, saving 27 million people £450 a year, and from next month the National Living Wage will rise to £11.44 an hour, allowing people to keep even more of their hard-earned cash for them to invest into our economy.
Like many Conservative MPs, I’ve been urging the Chancellor to go further than this with his Spring Budget, to go further with tax cuts, and to put more money back into people’s pockets.
Last week, along with other East Midlands MPs, I wrote to the Chancellor urging him to bring forward the delivery of billions in investment the Government promised our region as a result of cancelling HS2.
Although the funding, worth £2.2 billion to fix roads across the Midlands, was secured in October last year, this particular pot of money currently won’t be available until April 2025.
I know this won’t be good enough for people across Mansfield, like me, they want to see things improve now – not in a year’s time and after the next General Election. This is funding I’ve fought to secure, and I want to deliver it as soon as possible!
I’m keen to spend this money because I know the impact it will have, particularly in conjunction with our new Mayoral Combined Authority (that finally came into being last week!). Fortunately the £1.5bn Transport fund I’ve secured for the Combined Authority CAN be spent more quickly, as long as we elect a Mayor in May who knows what they’re doing. If I’m elected, I’ll kick off a massive investment in road resurfacing straight away!
I’m looking forward to Wednesday, to discover the full content of the Spring Budget and to see us continue down the path set in the Autumn Statement of cutting taxes and investing billions into our region.
