IFS warns Budget leaves weakest household income growth on record

John Healey's first Budget has left the government facing warnings over living standards and a dispute over when welfare spending will be reduced. The day after the Budget, Healey and Prime Minister Andy Burnham visited a Rolls-Royce factory in Derby. BBC News reported Burnham said the government wanted to get the welfare bill down as quickly as possible and was working flat out to that end.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said this decade looks set to be the worst for growth in household incomes on record. BBC News reported the IFS chart showed disposable household income growth was predicted to be far lower in the 2020s than in the six decades before 2010. Sky News reported Ed Conway, its economics and data editor, said OBR figures showed the weakest growth in real household disposable income on record.

ITV reported that the Chancellor had clarified there was no deadline for cutting benefit spending, despite earlier suggesting it would be done before the next planned general election. The Prime Minister's spokesperson denied that was what Healey meant and said there had never been a deadline. BBC News reported the welfare bill was forecast to climb from around £330 billion to around £430 billion over six years, including universal credit, personal independence payments and the state pension. It also reported health-related welfare spending had risen significantly since the start of the decade. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, told BBC News that cutting the welfare bill was essential and could be done compassionately while protecting disabled and vulnerable people.

BBC News reported that help for graduates with student loans was notably absent from the Budget. Caletta Smith, Your Voice correspondent, spoke to Jess and Riley in Leicester, who said nothing had been done on Plan 2 or postgraduate loans. Aran, a BBC Your Voice contributor, said his student loan stood at £83,000.

Sky News reported Ed Conway said the government's energy support was much smaller than the Liz Truss era guarantee, leaving net energy bills similar to the height of the price shock. Sky News also reported that if health and defence spending rise as planned, other departments face real-terms cuts, and that restoring them to flat spending would cost £28 billion.

ITV reported that some experts said the government's offer of cash to help with soaring bills was poorly targeted, and that a bakery near Manchester said business rates relief did not go far enough. Robert Peston, ITV's political editor, said the Budget lacked a compelling growth plan. He added that the OBR might be too pessimistic and that the economy was currently growing at roughly 2% a year.

GB News reviewed front pages that led on the IFS warning, including the Telegraph's 'prepare for a decade of pain, warns the IFS' and the Daily Mail's 'humiliation for Healey'. Its panel criticised the Budget as too cautious on welfare, with Linda Duberley saying the IFS was correct and that tinkering prolongs the pain. GB News also reported that ministers were drawing up off-the-books defence funding to avoid tax rises or public service cuts, including talks with NATO members about an international bank.