Latest news from the Silver Voices team shows discontent at Jeremy Hunt’s selective budget….
Silver Voices state….
TWO FINGERS UP TO OLDER PEOPLE
‘So said the Daily Telegraph in its immediate response to the Budget yesterday, which failed to mention older people at all. But the majority of the media has been keen to welcome the National Insurance cut of a further 2%, and has downplayed that this is a tax-raising Budget as far as older people are concerned.’
The Silver Voices Director has submitted the following opinion piece to the Daily Express, which pulls no punches about the implications of the Budget.
BLANK PAGE FOR OLDER PEOPLE
The Budget was a stunning miscalculation by the Chancellor. He failed to mention older people or the word pensioner once in his Budget Speech. He did not commit to the Triple Lock on state pensions beyond this year and did not recognise that older people do not benefit from National Insurance reductions. In failing to unfreeze tax allowances, 800,000 more older people will start paying income tax on their modest pensions from this April. The prized Triple Lock increase will be taxed for the large majority of pensioners. And we will face rises in council tax of at least 5%. So, for many of us this is a tax-raising Budget not a tax-cutting one.
On our crumbling public services there was little comfort. How many times have we heard cries of less bureaucracy and more productivity from politicians, with little to show from such plans in terms of better public services. The reality on the ground, with record NHS waiting lists, thousands of older people stuck in hospital beds because of a lack of social care to support them at home, and scores of local authorities in danger of bankruptcy, needed an emergency funding plan, not vague promises about the potential of new technology. New computer systems, artificial intelligence and drones are all very well, but their full impact will not be seen for years, and the public service crisis is now. And there are hidden dangers for older people from a hell for leather dash to digital services. A huge group of the digitally excluded is becoming increasingly isolated from modern society. Unable to access public or commercial services because they cannot afford broadband or do not have the necessary digital skills, these millions of vulnerable people feel they are being cast adrift by the politicians. Any move to increased digitalization must have a strategy for those who are currently excluded.
If this was a pitch to floating voters, it failed miserably in respect of senior citizens. The Budget was a blank page for 12 million older voters. In appealing for the votes of working families, the Chancellor has taken older voters for granted. The Conservatives will have to do a lot better than this in their election Manifesto if they want to appeal to the Silver Vote.
This brief film was recorded live by LBC, as the Budget was being announced yesterday:
Silver Voices
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