Budget 2021: Now Rishi Sunak must deliver new age of optimism – The Yorkshire Post says

The extraordinary measures taken to protect jobs meant that the Chancellor was able to confirm that the economy will soon surpass its pre-pandemic level and a series of growth forecasts which exceeded every pre-Budget leak and Treasury press release forecast.

Northern Powerhouse Rail; can Boris Johnson still be believed? – Tom Richmond

Now it falls to the Richmond MP to ensure that his measures galvanise, still further, the current resurgence, and Government’s ambition to transform under-performing towns and cities, or his desire for pre-election tax cuts for all will probably not come to pass.

Budget 2021: Stop talking and now deliver levelling up – Rachel Wolf

In many respects, this was a Gordon Brown-style Budget and spending review because the breadth of the announcements, and absence of detail, left many asking just how the Chancellor intends to pay for measures that also appeared to do little to address those structural weaknesses in the economy exposed by recent labour shortages and the escalating social care crisis.

Budget 2021: What Rishi Sunak must deliver for North – The Yorkshire Post says

As such, the ultimate test of this Budget is not Mr Sunak’s delivery and the reception that it received from a giddy Prime Minister and delirious Tory MPs. It is its implementation and whether it does create sufficient growth to ease, still further, a tax burden that is said to be the highest since the 1950s as families pay the price for Covid and wider social inequalities – help for the less well-off through Universal Credit tweaks, let it be remembered, will still be offset by above-inflation council tax rises and other inflationary pressures hitting taxpayers.

This newspaper welcomes Mr Sunak’s acceptance that more money needed to be allocated for schools catch-up funding – but questions whether this, and other measures to overhaul skills training, is sufficient when set in the context of the funding sought by Sir Kevan Collins before the Treasury’s refusal pre-empted his resignation.

His moves to overhaul business rates, incentivising owners to renovate town centre premises, and the decision to extend tax breaks to the hospitality, leisure and retail industries, also have the potential to make a significant difference to the prosperity of local communities.

And so, too, does money from the first tranche of Mr Sunak’s Levelling Up Fund – 10 schemes in Yorkshire to benefit from £137m of investment include a major waterfront extension in Doncaster and the regeneration of Whitefriargate, one of Hull’s oldest streets, following the closure of Marks & Spencer and other stores.

All welcome news, it does beg the question whether the Government’s definition of ‘levelling up’ is merely the ‘sprucing up’ of town centres – the economic equivalent of ‘make do and mend’ – rather than a truly transformative economic and social policy that enables future generations to fulfil their potential.

Notable for its absence was any reference to the Government’s levelling up objectives – an ominous omission when this Budget’s success depends so much on its delivery – or the status of both Northern Powerhouse Rail and the eastern leg of HS2 to Leeds as fears grow that both will be scaled back in the long-delayed Integrated Rail Plan.

Mr Sunak should be aware of the reputational damage that he, and the Government, will suffer if this region’s worst fears come to be realised – after all, the Chancellor himself has conceded that high-speed rail in this region is a question of trust because of its importance.

His reluctance is all the more perplexing when he used his speech, on the eve of the Cop26 summit, to prioritise domestic air travel over high-speed rail – a point made very effectively by Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves as the Leeds West MP deputised for Sir Keir Starmer after the Labour leader was struck down with Covid.

Yet, on a historic day for Yorkshire politics when the Budget speech, and official response, were delivered by MPs from this region who offered rival visions for the future of the country that they’re proud to serve, the main priority now is ensuring that no family – or community – is left behind if this is to be the dawn of a new age of optimism.

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