Budget 2021: Think tank response round-up

How have think-tanks and campaign groups responded to the Chancellor’s fiscal and economic initiatives?

Mubin Haq: How can it be right for the Government to harm your business, leave you in need – and not help you?

We found over a million people excluded from the Government schemes are struggling to pay for food and everyday essentials.

Sunak’s measures: What do they look like, where’s the money coming from – and how do they compare to other countries’?

While the Chancellor’s recovery measures look drastic, they are “middle of the pack” when compared to others in the world.

Robert Halfon: There must be no tax rises for lower income voters to help meet the costs of the virus

No fuel duty rises, self-employed taxes, income tax rises, more taxes on food and drink – and the like.

Neil O’Brien: Higher and technical eduation. The universities should reform themselves. Or have reform forced on them.

For a country deep in debt, lofty thoughts are not enough to justify such huge numbers of students doing things that don’t help them economically,

Luke Evans: The shutdown and economic crisis. The longer the first goes on, the more likely the second becomes.

There is an unsolvable and immeasurable balance between lives and livelihoods. So we are going to need consensus across the House.

David Goodhart: The virus. It’s almost certain that ethnic minorities are at greater risk. But we can’t yet know the full explanation.

There are three main factors at work – genetics, plus cultural and social factors. And it’s not possible at present to disentangle the mix.

This really is the time to let the deficit grow big enough to look after itself

If, that is, interest rates carry on at rock bottom rates. But we have to take a chance on growing our way out of this crisis.

Phil Taylor: Labour’s Austerity 1) How Brown’s Government planned £94 billion of cuts

As the tenth anniversary of the 2010 election approaches, the author says that Labour’s own austerity record and plans were almost as tough as the Coalition’s.

James Heywood: The virus has exposed the urgent need to reform how we treat the self-employed

The tax benefits of being self-employed should reflect genuine value added relative to normal employment.

Budget 1) This was less a Conservative Budget than “the People’s Budget”. From a Vote Leave Government – not the usual Tory one.

It may be necessary, given the Coronavirus, and could even work. But Britain has a long, long record of state spending failing to turbo-charge growth.

Neil O’Brien: The balance of power between economic and social conservatives may be shifting to the latter

We lost Putney, but gained loads of poorer seats in the north and midlands. That’s highlighted the tensions.

Tom Clougherty: Unless Labour resorts to printing money, higher income tax, NI or VAT are coming – for the many, not the few

That’s a legitimate political agenda, and people are quite welcome to vote for it. But they deserve to know what’s coming.

An idea for McDonnell. Pledge £1 million to every voter in Britain.

Let him carry on what he’s started by exploding the financial framework Labour announced in only two days.

The ConservativeHome columnists and the Conservative Party manifesto

We unleashed Nick Timothy on the world as a columnist. Meet the husband-and-wife combo of Rachel Wolf and James Frayne.