Don’t forget middle class families and social care in Budget – Jayne Dowle

Yet even now, with just over 48 hours to go, whispers from the Treasury have been muted. It’s no wonder really. The new Chancellor, Richmond MP Rishi Sunak, has only been in the job a couple of weeks.

And, clearly, initial ideas will have been revised since coronavirus gripped the nation in a frenzy of hand sanitiser stockpiling. Only one thing is certain; shares in companies producing disinfectant products are sure to rocket.

Will their owners still be able to claim entrepreneurs’ relief? This controversial scheme, which gifts wealthy company owners up to £350,000 each and is believed to cost the Treasury £3bn, is under question.

Still, 150 prominent business leaders have written to the Treasury warning that if start-ups will depart the UK if it is scrapped. It will be interesting to see what Mr Sunak says.

And the rest of us? We’re waiting and wondering what is in store. As the Chancellor joins up the final dots, I have one plea; don’t forget to think about the middle.

That’s middle-aged, middle income and middle class (in the widest sense). Younger voters might argue that they are the future and their taxes will help to pay for our old age. Older voters, in general, realise that they are relatively well-catered for, despite the shadow of care costs and the TV licence fee.

It’s us in the middle who need a break. Literally in many cases. We should be the ones with the concessions (especially if we’re self-employed), the support to bring up our children without falling into lifelong debt and to look after our parents without exhausting ourselves into an early grave.

It’s easy to forget us. Yet we’re the ones supporting student offspring as they attempt to negotiate tuition fees of almost £10,000 a year, plus living expenses.

No one expects education for free, but an imaginative government would come up with ways to lessen the blow. Capping vice-chancellor pay and placing sanctions on multi-million budget university vanity projects, sorry, campus expansion, might be a thought.

Above all, I’d like to see a commitment to overhauling council tax to find a more equitable way of funding services and contributing towards social care.

It’s the one tax that most of us are obliged to pay in some form. It should be fair and progressive. However, it has become grossly distorted; a billionaire living in a Westminster mansion (Band H) is likely to pay less, £1,507.70, than a working family in a Barnsley semi (Band D), £1,750.77.

Politicians have shied away from reform for years. Get it right and it could be a proper legacy for the Johnson years.

We can’t talk about council tax without bringing up social care, partially funded by local authority revenue. And yes, we’re still waiting for the social care Green Paper promised in the March 2017 Budget. Now would be a good time.

Who will look after us when we’re old keeps us middles awake at night. Closely linked is the question - and it’s a big one – of pensions. Frankly, pensions are a mess. It’s deeply wrong that public sector employees can bow out in their fifties with financial security for life, whilst others are obliged to soldier on until 70 looms on the horizon.

This inequality has been given fresh impetus by the call for early-retired NHS staff to return to work in the event of coronavirus taking hold.

It’s a brave government prepared to look pensions squarely in the face, but the Prime Minister keeps reminding us of how fearless he is. His Chancellor would be hugely courageous if he announced that he’s about to raise the age at which we can withdraw up to 25 per cent of a pension pot tax-free by two years from 55 to 57.

Tinkering around the edges will cause nothing but further frustration and anger. Better to wait, and announce a full-scale pensions review to iron out all the inequalities.

However, the biggest question is does the idea of a ‘Budget’ still work at all? The political mould is broken.

No longer do senior politicians set out to persuade the public to like them; if we do, it’s an accident. Rather, they consider themselves above such fickle concerns, and devise and carry out policies for the good of the nation (or so they tell us).

How else would austerity have been rolled out, the NHS so underfunded and police numbers depleted so drastically since 2010? These are hardly populist moves, yet they have taken root without a revolution.

You might argue that it’s pretty futile to put together a plea, but I’d argue that it’s more important than ever to remind our politicians who we are – and who voted them into power.