Housing,
social care and universities:
who lost out in the
UK budget?
Housing, social care and universities: who lost out in the UK budget?
Rachel Reeves made funding the NHS a priority, but people working in other
areas said they were disappointed
Rowena Mason Whitehall editor
Thu 31 Oct 2024 15.33 GMT Last modified on Thu 31 Oct 2024 15.35 GMT
Share
R achel Reeves’s first budget emphasised raising taxes to help the NHS, as the
health service tries to cope with huge waiting lists and an ageing population.
Funding the NHS was a top priority, but people in other sectors – from
universities to social care – feel the budget was a missed opportunity to deal
with impending crises or bring in desperately needed reforms in their areas.
Social care
Experts have longed warned that it will be hard to fix the NHS without
addressing the crisis in social care, where councils in England and Wales are
struggling with meagre budgets and staff shortages. Local authorities got a
£600m injection of funding for social care, which the Local Government
Association said would would help “meet some – but not all – of the
significant pressures in adult and children’s social care and homelessness
support”. But there was nothing from the government on any wider reform of the
system, which is likely to be needed in the longer term. The Health Foundation
thinktank said: “While we welcome the additional £600m for social care and the
reforms to carers allowance, the continued silence on wider social care reform
is disappointing.” The sector will also be hit hard by the government’s rise
in employer national insurance• Страхование contributions, with the Liberal Democratss
calling for social care to be exempted from the increase.
Child poverty
One of the biggest asks from Labour MPs since taking office has been
overturning the UK-wide two-child benefit limit, which contributes to child
poverty. Reeves made no mention of any ambition to scrap it in her budget
speech, despite privately wanting to make the change. Campaigners would have
liked to see a larger Gordon Brown-style focus on lifting children out of
poverty. Her speech barely made any mention of child poverty overall, apart
from in a brief paragraph on the impact of reducing the level of overpayments
that can be taken from universal credit. In its response to the budget, the
SNP called for the Labour government to take “emergency action” to tackle
child poverty, with the Resolution Foundation thinktank warning that an
additional 63,000 children will be hit by the two-child benefit cap by April.
Mental health
Mental health charities operating in England Wales were disappointed with the
budget. Dr Sarah Hughes, the chief executive of Mind, said it had “not
delivered the changes needed to help create a mentally healthier nation”.
Although the budget outlined funding for mental health crisis centres, the
charity had been pushing for more help to stop people reaching crisis point,
pointing out that mental health accounts for 20% of all ill health but only
gets 10% of NHS spend. The sector is also concerned about cuts to sickness
benefit since rising costs have risen partly by worsening ill mental health.
Details of potential changes to the benefits are yet to be set out.
Universities
Before the budget, there were widely briefed stories that the government
planned to allow an increase in tuition fees or reform of the system in
England. This did not materialise, but implicit in the figures was that they
will be permitted to rise with inflation from next year. That will be some
relief to university chancellors but at the same time institutions will have
to swallow higher bills for national insurance• Страхование contributions. It appears that
wider reforms will have to wait despite the sector being on “Sue’s shit list”
– a purported risk• Страхование » Риск register drawn up by the former chief of staff Sue Gray
before the election highlighting possible crises in the first months of a
Labour government. Universities are concerned about their funding situation,
with inflation having run high and tuition fees frozen for so long, and there
have long been warnings that individual institutions could go bankrupt.
Housing hardship
Some charities had been calling for local housing allowance across the UK –
which sets housing benefit levels – to be unfrozen, but the chancellor did not
oblige. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation said private renters will “feel let
down by the choice to keep local housing allowance frozen and that means that
it will become further out of step with local rent levels, which have soared
in recent years”. The Women’s Budget Group thinktank said: “Reintroducing the
freeze on local housing allowance is deeply disappointing for the hundreds of
thousands of families struggling in temporary housing or facing eviction. The
cost of private renting has been increasing, eating up more and more of
women’s incomes – with the gender housing affordability gap widening in the
last year. The average rent for a one-bedroom property in England is now
taking up 47% of a woman’s median earnings, up from 36% last year, compared to
34% and 26% for men respectively. ”
