Chancellor John Healey is set to reveal his spending plans for the country
Author: Q CumminsPublished 1 hour ago
Today Chancellor John Healey is expected to announce his first budget. Those in Kent told us that the cost of food, travel and bills are critical areas that they hope to see addressed.
Food Affordability
David from Gillingham said:
“Obviously cost of living, gas, electric, food prices, they just seem to be creeping up day after day. Not about weeks, day after day.
“And it doesn’t matter where you shop, cuz at the end of the day, you like to go and get a bargain.
“But I don’t think there’s bargains out there for people. So more more affordable food and gas, electric.”
A woman in Rochester added:
“Everything goes up so much.
“The food is so expensive that you go and do your shopping bill one week, and not like a week later it’ll be like 20 quid more.
“So, food inflation probably is the biggest issue that I think we’ve got at the moment.”
Ramsgate resident Lucy agreed, saying:
“The cost of just food would be massively helped if it was, relative to what you’re getting.
“Obviously you’re always going to get the expensive items and stuff, but the essentials should actually be locked at a certain price, milk, bread, butter, all of those kind of things.
“I think about 2 or 3 years ago my household grocery shop was about 250 pounds a month, and it’s now 400 to 500.
“For me and my family that’s has often been unreachable.
“You just have to be a bit hungry.”
Travel
Another couple in Medway said their biggest focus was on the cost of transport:
“The travel’s a big thing.
“All our kids are around the the country, so you have to travel to get to them and it’s just getting out of proportion now.
“The train is absolutely ridiculous now.
“I think it used to be a little bit up there, but now it’s just way out of a lot of people’s means.
“A lot of people just can’t afford it.”
Farming
Others in Kent’s farming community, such as George in Canterbury say inheritance tax and reiliiance are an issue:
“It would be great to see more funding for reservoirs to help make a more resilient food system.
“There has been talk about it in the past, but the amounts of money involved would barely scratch the surface.
“It would be great to see a U-turn on the inheritance tax, the family farm tax.
“If you’re taxing a farm at 20% every generation, that works out at more or less .7 of a percent a year.
“So there’s no chance of investment, or moving forward or making your farm more resilient generation to generation.
“Any profit that you would otherwise be able to reinvest in your business is is lost to income tax and then put aside for a future inheritance tax liability.”
It’s expected that tariffs on several foods will be removed for affordability.
