• Ed Miliband, Labour leader
“Every time in the future [Gerge Osborne] tries to justify an unfair decision by saying times are tough, we’ll remind him he chose to spend millions of pounds on people who need it the least ... It’s a millionaire budget that squeezes the middle. Wrong choices, wrong values, wrong priorities. Same old Tories.”
• Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison
“This budget is not a road to recovery but a Road to Nowhere — No jobs. No growth. No idea. The Chancellor’s budget has given a helping hand-out to his rich friends in the City and delivered a slap in the face to the unemployed and low paid families.”
• Ashley Steel, KPMG’s global chair for transport
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“At long last pressure from business and lobby groups appears to be weakening the government’s previous resolve to oppose airport capacity in the South East. Finally, there is hope for a third runway at Heathrow as the Government said it will ‘confront’ the lack of airport capacity in the South East. Additional runway capacity is essential for the continuing economic recovery. We urgently need greater access to the business opportunities found in the growing economies of Asia and Latin America. We hope the promised paper from the Transport Secretary will commit to providing additional runway capacity quickly.”
• David Bizley, RAC tecnical director
“The Chancellor has put the heat on hard-pressed motorists this summer by completely ignoring calls to scrap the 3p duty increase planned for August. Drivers are being hit by record fuel prices on a daily basis with no sign of it ending. Tomorrow we are likely to see the average price of petrol crash the 140p a litre barrier, but the Chancellor has done nothing to help. This was the chance to do the right thing for motorists who pay around £45 billion a year in motoring taxes - instead he’s given them more pain at the pumps.”
• Simon Clark, director of smokers’ group Forest
“This is a smugglers’ charter. More and more consumers will turn to the black market or buy their tobacco abroad. The elderly, the low paid and the unemployed will be hit the hardest but this is an attack on all law-abiding smokers who support British retailers by purchasing their cigarettes at home. The only people celebrating this decision will be criminal gangs and tobacco control lobbyists.”
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• Paul Kenny, GMB general secretary
“In this Budget the different treatment of people at either end of the income scale is stark. Ordinary families are losing their tax credits and child allowances and suffering pay freezes while people on top salaries of £150,000 to £1 million a year are getting cash hand outs from the Government. So much for the perception of shared sacrifice. The claim that it is necessary to boost the take home pay of those on top salaries to get the economy moving while cutting the pay of the lowest paid to achieve the same result is total and arrant nonsense.”
• Simon Walker, Institute of Directors director-general
“While any tax reduction is welcome, the Chancellor has not done enough to free business from the burdens and barriers that are holding economic growth back. Businesses dearly want the opportunity to invest, create and build, but George Osborne must go much further if he wants to fire up the engines of the economy. There was a bold move on corporation tax, but in the bigger picture this is still not far enough or fast enough.”
• Andrew Smith, KPMG chief economist
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“For once the OBR hasn’t had to downgrade its forecasts and even found scope for an upward tweak to growth and downward tweak to borrowing projections. Things may not be getting worse, but they are not about to get much better either. The downturn is already worse than the 1930s slump, when it took four years for GDP to return to its pre-recession peak. This time round, four years on output is still four per cent down and on current projections will not fully recover until sometime in 2014.”
• David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation
“We welcome the Chancellor’s move to close the loophole that allowed wealthy individuals to buy properties through companies and avoid stamp duty. It meant people on high incomes could avoid paying tax on the purchase of expensive homes. However, it is disappointing that the Chancellor has failed to put investment in housing at the forefront of driving forward economic growth in the UK.”
• Brigid Simmonds, chief executive British Beer & Pub Association
“This is a bitter blow. It will cost the pub sector £14 million in extra taxes next year. Fruit machines and quiz machines are an important part of the fabric of British pubs, a vital income stream, and valued by customers. For quiz-based machines, this punitive new tax rate could see many of them disappear from pubs.”
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• Andy Atkins, executive director of Friends of the Earth
“This Budget sticks two fingers up at David Cameron’s promise to build a clean future – and gives a massive thumbs down to new jobs and cutting our reliance on expensive gas and oil. Safeguarding our environment and growing a strong economy go hand in hand – but the Chancellor has fired the starting pistol for more roads, airports and gas power that will keep the UK hooked on costly fossil fuels for decades to come. The few green crumbs of comfort offered by Mr Osborne will be completely swept away by a package of policies that make this a Black Wednesday for the environment.”
• Adam Royle, of the Campaign to Protect Rural England
“We heard yet more of the Chancellor’s misguided and dangerous rhetoric on planning today. If the Government undermines sound planning, it will put sustainable economic growth at risk. Countries like Germany show that good economic performance and strong planning systems can go hand in hand. From the Chancellor’s words we fear the longstanding protection for the wider countryside will be abandoned. That would mean that 55 per cent of English countryside, including many locally loved green spaces, could be placed at the mercy of developers.
• Shan Nicholas, interim chief executive of the Children’s Society
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“This Budget has fallen a long way short of putting vital pounds into the pockets of low-income families. Instead of producing a roadmap to meet its commitment to end child poverty by 2020, the Chancellor is considering slashing a further £10 billion from the welfare budget. “Coming on top of cuts being introduced this year and next, this will make the future for some of this country’s poorest families even bleaker.”
• Ian Brinkley, director of the Work Foundation
“This was the Budget that could have done much more to set out a growth strategy. There were some welcome hints of what could have been – measures that support key industries such as life sciences and the digital sector, help create a modern infrastructure and boost to the science base. But these tentative measures were over shadowed by more traditional cuts in corporation tax and more Enterprise Zones. Not surprising, this Budget does little to alter long-term prospects for the UK economy.”
• Mark Giddens, a partner at the accountants UHY Hacker Young
“The UK has been losing too many talented individuals to Singapore, Hong Kong and Switzerland over the last two years. In a globalised economy a 50p tax rate is the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. A lot of entrepreneurs have delayed paying themselves in the hope that the 50p tax rate would be cancelled – their gamble has paid off.”
• Michelle Mitchell, charity director general of Age UK
“We agree with the Chancellor that the current pension system is bafflingly complex and so we welcome his announcement that the Government is to bring in a flat rate pension and look forward to reading more detailed proposals. Age UK believes that a flat rate pension would enable future pensioners to feel clearer about their retirement income and plan accordingly. However, it is important that the Government does not lose sight of the needs of current pensioners, 1.8 million of whom are living in poverty.”
• Imran Hussain, spokesperson, End Child Poverty
“For all the fanfare, this is not the progressive Budget it was trailed as. Look past the spin to the Treasury’s own analysis and it shows the poorest half of the population taking a greater hit on their incomes than almost everyone in the richest half. The government’s child poverty strategy and claims of fairness are left in disarray as the nation stands at the brink of a surge in child poverty.”
• Gransnet Editor Geraldine Bedell
“The biggest tax rise on pensioners in recent memory is already being dubbed by some as the Granny poll tax. The changes are set to cost over 350,000 pensioners £285 a year. People who have worked hard all their lives are now being targeted while at the same time seeing headlines of tax cuts for millionaires.”
• John Longworth, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce
“Never has there been a more important moment for the government to focus on British business and long-term, sustainable growth. The Chancellor’s commitments to contain the deficit and reduce corporation tax will be welcomed warmly by business. However, many small and medium-sized companies will feel the measures overwhelmingly benefit the biggest businesses. Smaller firms will be disappointed George Osborne did not do more to support confidence and growth in the real economy.”
• Julia Stent, director of telecoms at uSwitch.com
“Whilst funding earmarked for ultra-fast broadband in 10 UK cities is both ambitious and heartening, and will undoubtedly benefit technology companies looking to develop and expand in the UK, the primary concern should be the provision of a quality service to rural areas before pursuing the title of fastest broadband in the world. Although there are still broadband blackspots and speed issues in some urban areas of the UK, we worry that the major towns and cities will speed ahead of the rest of the country in the premature quest to become fastest in the world.”