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Hello a very good evening to you from Cay thorps for this special edition of the UK tonight looking at what today’s budget means for you and your family the chancellor Jeremy hunk confirmed that 2p cup to National Insurance a giveaway for some 27 million workers and there was
Help on child benefit for high earning parents but there was no rabbit out of the Hat and as our political editor Beth rby reports it didn’t have the feel of a pre-election budget an elected winning budget a pre-election budget this moment as much about the Politics as the economics this
May be the last chance to shift the dial for a conservative party 20 points behind in the polls a huge opportunity for this Chancellor and one match with big expectations from his party and the public we can now help families not just with temporary cost of living support but with permanent Cuts in
Taxation but the only big cut in this budget was two percentage points of National Insurance this a repeat of Mr Hunt’s big giveaway last November that failed to move the polls and his other more modest move changes to child benefit to help higher earners from this April the high income child benefit
Charge threshold will be raised from 50,000 to £60,000 there were some new taxes too on vaping business class plane tickets and holiday lets and a new measure to abolish tax breaks for so-called non-doms who live in the UK with a permanent home overseas it was a policy taken from the
Opposition benches and made the Chancellor’s own the government will abolish the current tax system for non-doms get rid of the outdated concept of Dom the Prime Minister looking pleased with a budget he’s understood to have been heavily involved in s but labor quick to point voters back
To an unprecedented tax burden set by a Tory government Britain in recession the national credit card maxed out and despite the measures to say the highest tax burden for 70 years yeah saw that budget delivered the PM and his Chancellor straight out on a visit to a builder Merchant the question is have
Voters simply stopped listening did you catch any of Jeremy’s budget no you’re working too hard the message of today’s modest tax cuts could prove A Hard Sell hi Beth hi Chancellor nice to see youwise how you doing very good we’ve just had had your budget we don’t know
When the general election will be but is this your last throw of the dice absolutely not um we have produced today a budget that shows that we are turning a corner uh we have had a plan since the time I became Chancellor to bring down inflation and restore growth and the the
Changes that we’ve made today on National Insurance uh combined with what we did in the autumn mean that we’ll fill around 1 in five VES I will come back to the tax burden because the OB forecast show it’s going to be going to the highest level in 70 years by the end of
The forast what I want to ask you now though is should we expect another fiscal event before a general election or is this it well that depends when the Prime Minister decides to call the election um but uh whenever that is uh you know and that is the the key point
You’ve just talked about the tax burden so let me just address that point um of course taxes have gone up because we spent uh over 400 billion pounds helping families through the pandemic and through a cost of living crisis if you were looking for pre-election fireworks in this budget
Well look away now Jeremy Hunt chose fiscal responsibility over political excitement the long shadow of Liz truss’s mini budget still looms large what the chancellor wants to show you is that the toies can be trusted on the economy and they will cut your taxes but here’s the
Rub the overall tax burden in our nation is still going up and households on average are going to be worse off going into the next general election than they were the last time they went to the polls this a budget that could well struggle to bring about political
Renewal already talk around here of another fiscal event later in the year before an Autumn general election the March budget done but still no spring in the T step Beth rig Sky News Westminster so no fireworks but let’s take a look at what we did get the key announcements from today’s budget
National Insurance of course that was the headline it’s going to be cut by 2p from April uh reducing to 8% for employees and 6% for those who are self-employed the high income child benefit charge threshold that’s going to be raised from £50,000 to £60,000 and the government is going to get rid of
The non-don tax status the vat registration threshold for businesses that’s going to increase to 90,000 the government will invest almost 6 billion in the NHS including 33.4 billion in modernizing its it systems the government is going to launch a British Isa allowing an investment of up
To 5,000 pound more in UK Equity per year there’s going to be a new Duty on vaping products that’s going to be introduced in 2026 and there will be a one-off increase in tobacco Duty the government will maintain the 5p cuts of fuel Duty for another year and the alcohol Duty
Freeze that’s going to continue until February 2025 so they’re the headlines our political correspondent ger Nan uh was following it all with me here in uh CLE thoughts and grim be today and gy it’s that said there no fireworks it was sensible it was conservative but was it enough for the
Chance from the chancellor ahead of a general election yeah this was what could be the last budget after 14 years of conservative government and based on where we are in the Electoral cycle and where the conservatives are in the polls Jeremy Hunt really needed to do something to Galvanize the public he
Needed to go big and I think in fact the budget kind of fell flap a lot of people found it quite boring now that’s not to take away from the fact that that 2p cut in National Insurance is significant when you combine it with the 2p we saw
In November that 4 P amounts to about 900 a year for an average household so it is a significant tax cut the problem is it’s being sandwiched by Massive tax rises in the form of those frozen tax thresholds so however much Jeremy Hunt tries to sell this as a tax cutting
Budget he’s not fooling anyone because it’s a massive tax raising Parliament and that was sort of the biggest announcement he said he he had but it was leaked in the Press where it was given to the Press beforehand and everything else in the budget well there
Was no big surprise there there were no rabbits there were no rabbits the freeze and fuel duty duty was largely expected the closest thing we came to a RAB that came to a rabbit was the changes in child benefit but there wasn’t anything massive in there and so people when they
Going to the polls the reality is that they are going to be worse off than they were were compared to the last time that they went to the polls and at the same time they are looking at cuts to public spending we were expecting that the chancellor would cut public spending he
Didn’t that doesn’t take away from the fact that the current plans he has in place mean that unprotected budgets things like um courts and prisons and local authorities are facing really massive cuts to public spending and there is no appetite for that across the elector including in places like rsby
And CLE thorps where the promises of leveling up really cut through and the associated increases in public spending and public infrastructure can I just ask you about the comment the chancellor made after he delivered the budget to our political editor Beth Rigby there Beth put to him that you know this was
The last throw of the dice or is this the last throw of the dice before a general election and he said absolutely not what does that mean what could he do before a general election to make people feel better off going to the polls well
It could mean a number of things um but look there was a lot of speculation around the fact that this could be a massive budget and then the Tories would go go call an election and ask V us to go to the polls but the reality is the
Headro that the transer had to play with the amount of money Firepower he had was dramatically reduced compared to what he thought it was going to be at the beginning of the year he thought he would have3 billion P to play with in fact he had 8.9 billion PS to play with
Which means he can’t do as much as he would have liked now what he could do is wait for perhaps the bank of England to cut interest rates we know that inflation’s going to hit 2% by the middle of the year uh which means he
Could wait for that cut uh and on the back of that our voters to go to the pole squeeze in one more fiscal event and hope the uh Outlook improves so he can afford to give away uh he can afford some bigger giveaways okay watch the
Space ger for the moment thank you ger we’ll speak later on in the program and let’s talk a little bit about that well we couldn’t call it a r rabbit maybe a bunny that the chancellor pulled out today some good news for parents or for some of them at least the chancellor
Raising the tax threshold of Child Benefits that’s going up from £50,000 to £60,000 but it only really benefits higher earners so what do the people of this area make of that move our national correspondent Tom pm has been finding out every day Mike gets into the sea at CLE
Thorps connect with people through videos and spread some positivity morning morning Community is everything so it’s more important than ever that we stick together budget Day May about the numbers but it’s so much more than that for me it comes down to one word hope you know hope that you know things are
Going to change and that they can get behind something and believe in it and I think they need to be able to touch and feel it you know and see how it’s going to change their life in neighboring Grimsby at a play session that’s free for families the Chancellor’s Outlook
Didn’t tally with theirs the National Insurance cut will help Sally’s Partners take home pay but not their spending power it still quickly disappears because obviously the cost of living goes up that doesn’t really change anything so many families here in the west Marsh area of town are just
Surviving each month don’t think today the budget’s helped anybody dramatically at all and it you know I think it what it is it’s an election pitch but they’ve taken so much away that in this point leading up to an election I don’t see how they can ever
Give money back that will really help CU anything to give is swallowed up just like that expanding Child Benefits a reach more families earning up to 60,000 a year is a win for some but not Alexandra whose partner has his own electrical business I think the child
Benefit is fair enough it might not affect us but I think the major thing for people is the child care cost Chancellor did reiterate they are helping on child care and investing in every corner of the country there are big plans for the docks in Grimsby but
At the Art Club in a community Cafe here Chelsea had expected much more we’ll help you we’re going to get it better the budget’s going to go down this is going to go down but then it’s KNX in a month later it’s gone up again so is it
Coming down or is it just going up either way you can’t you can’t win can you it’s justd yeah we’re not we’re not picking up as a country we’re going back there were bits and pieces from this budget but put together it hasn’t changed the mood here the drag on the nation’s
Finances runs deep Tom parer Sky News Grimsby well throughout the year we’re going to be speaking to the people that live in CL thorps as well as in Grimsby they are our Target towns as we approach a general election Al tonight I’m joined by relle Civ company director of Freedom
Speaks of business the focus is on advocacy support representation for parents with children who have special education needs I’m also joined by the writer Sarah stook and Hart chatter director of a property rental agency uh in the area hello welcome to you all uh right pop quiz on the budget go no I
Wouldn’t do that to you I wouldn’t do that to you ladies first so we’ve had the budget and I know you’ve either watched it today live or you’ve caught up on uh what the chanc are announced Let’s just go with your overall feeling having taken in all the
Information cuz it was build as the the big one before we go to the polls what were they going to do for people to get them to vote conservative relle did you have anything in there that that made you think yes no not particularly found it a disappointing budget given that
We’ve got a general election coming up um particularly concerned about a couple of things that I’ve seen in there more than I’m happy about what there is uh that for small business um promot voted as being a benefit to us but completely mold in my opinion um slightly happy to
See that um there’s some help for parents in relation to uh Child Benefits threshold being increased but I think it’s negligible much like most of what I’ve read yeah what about you Sarah how did you come away from it feeling I think you know I’m generally quite
Cynical when it comes to politics I was never really expecting anything but from a perspective as a young person I don’t feel like it was a budget I don’t feel like it was a budget for any age I don’t think it was a budget for my generation or younger or particularly for older
People my parents age people older than that not saying my parents are old that be watching s you’ll be in trouble so I’m not particularly impressed I did think it was going to be more bit more of a giveaway bit more of a you you tell your child if you get
Good grades you’ll get them a laptop kind of thing so I’m I’m thought it was particularly restrained from that point but nothing particularly I think would help me personally or perhaps any voters who were subject are changing their minds yeah you know we’ve been hearing that people wanted Big Ideas something
Bold in this general election year what they got was sensible and conservative which you know it sounds like doesn’t help anyone well even Dick Turpin wore a mask and it definitely is the case I mean as taxpayers we still been lied to and and they’re stealing off us and I
Mean they’ve offer this a token gesture of the National Insurance and they’ve said they’re going to abolish that so if they go down thatout route and that’s just to get the voters on the side of the Tory party if that will sustain their you know claim as the leaders of
The country I don’t think it will but if they go down that route with the National Insurance then the treasur is the treasury will only suffer and then where will they find further funds to fill the coffers and then they they brought the vat in with an increase to
90,000 a freshh but really that’s it’s tangible because a lot of businesses small business like myself it would it won’t make a great deal of difference the corporation tax which is a it’s a big uh for me a Big B they reduce that slightly and regard the the child tax
For the high earners again they put to £60,000 and then taper it to 80,000 so the higher earners who are there already paying far too much tax it’s not made a great deal of difference but the need to really think about what they’re going to go doing forward which
I don’t think they really have yeah I let’s go back to to the small business idea and you mentioned some of it there and and Melle I know from talking to you last night on the program that you know you’re really passionate about getting businesses help and there are a lot of
Small businesses in this area was there anything in that budget to help small businesses because it feels like it’s all for mediumsized and bigger businesses especially when it comes to investment to help any kind of small business here in the the the Grimsby and cops area learning to expect nothing
Less now for small businesses medium and big corporations as far as I’m concerned they can sail away but us small businesses you need to read what the Chancellor’s got to say alongside uh what’s written but he’s msold the V uh matter as far as I’m concerned he suggested that it’ll be increased to
90,000 but those that are already registered for that are already in the pot and so that makes no difference to a lot of small businesses and of course also remember that that is the turnover it actually weights to416 extra a month as turnover um difference for those that
Aren’t that registered currently it just doesn’t seem to make any particular sense as to why why they’re doing it and and should we be grateful I don’t feel very grateful for that I’m afraid um sah the chancellor did mention um in the statement about you know young people getting on the property
Ladder is there much for young people I mean he He also mentioned leveling up and you know a lot of that leveling up will go into big projects that may not benefit people young uh young people right now but sort of further down the line there wasn’t much in there about
Social housing which is so desperately need he announced you know investment in Canary W from parking Riverside and you know is that social housing what is that you know where do you feel you are on on the housing side the problem is you know in the 1990s um housing house prices versus
Your income was uh 4% higher now it’s 8.8% so it’s doubled over the last 30 years when you’ve got that much inequality when you have older people telling us oh you should stop buying avocados or stop buying Amazon and Netflix when your income doesn’t stretch as far when houses are far more
Expensive when you’ve got MPS who live in constituencies where house prices are double national average saying oh we can’t have 20 houses on that tiny green spice that dog walkers only use because they’re catering to their older voters yes older people vote more but when those older people die out and my
Generation is starting to vote we’re not going going to vote conservative we’re not going to vote labor you know it’s the only age group that tours are winning are 60 plus so you know when we come out to vote I think they shouldn’t be surprised when we don’t vote for them
So maybe consider young people for once and supposedly being the party of aspiration well it’s aspiration only for wealthy pensioners H just a final thought from you we did hear from the chancellor that this might not be the last fiscal move from the government before a general election what would be
The big thing for you to get to get you on their side it’s immigration it’s you could maybe say it’s not part of the budget but but I’m afraid it has a ripple effect from placing down to my sector housing and the NHS the Frontline staff who are there day in day out
Catering for our needs and people end up at A&E they can’t be seen for whatever reason now I’m not saying they should stop immigration but the criteria and the standard standards of letting people into the country they’ve got to set a mandate like a lot of other countries
Around the world do and that’s something I’m very passionate about and I think it’s something that if labor want to get into power and there were a stronghold here before the last election they’ve got to come out and say okay this is something and that will stabilize the
Country and also it’s the first thing on people’s lips that comes out there m whether you’re in the local public house you’re in the library you’re at the gym it is immigration okay h Sarah and Michelle we’re going to talk to you more over the course of the year as we build
Up to the general election plenty more to say but for the moment thank you um this is where we’re going to ask for a bit of audience partition participation now we want to find out uh whether people here tonight are better or worse off as a result of today’s budget now we
Have a calculator on our website it’s live on our app as well if you scan the QR code on your screen you can check your finances as well we’re going to get everybody here at the CLE thoughts Tap House and kitchen to take part as well we’re going to give everyone a few
Minutes during the break to do that and we’ll find out what the results are when we come Back Thick stories don’t always come from big cities I’m Lisa Dow and I’m Sky’s m Midland’s correspondent and this is where I grew up we can reveal that the driver who hit Harry dun is 42y old an sas just met the president and we never thought we’d get this far this is what
They’re up against that the wind is the really big problems it is back breaking work and the smoke is Thick it’s been working well water levels are dropping but no one knows what impact further rain we have what would you do if this place wasn’t open so we take you to the heart of the stories that shape our world it’s really scary we’re terrified in this community
I’m told that everybody knows someone affected by covid hopefully this will be the last weave I never knew they would make it it’s amazing change seems tantalizingly close in this corner of the UK Wales was the first to introduce the plastic bag charge this is my patch my specialism it’s also my Home Y hello welcome back to Cle thorps now before the break uh we asked you at home and people here at CLE thorp’s Tap House and kitchen to use the calculator that’s on our website and on our app which will basically calculate given today’s announcements in the budget whether you
Are better or worse off as a result it’s a really handy uh tool um so let’s find out how clear thoughts have gone on our little sample here H hands up who is better off after today’s announcement you have a show of hands anyone better off just one gentleman at the bar there
Who’s worse off right okay let’s have a little chat to Phoebe and keani now you put your hands up you’ve done your calculations and you’re worse off and ke do you mind telling me by how much 4750 a week a week mhm were you quite shocked by that
I was cuz that’s the whole food shop and travel petrol yeah a week Phoebe what about you what did you discover uh mine was £42 and yeah again it’s quite quite a lot cuz like I drive so that’s basically my my Fu for a month gone like just gone
And there talk to me about what it’s like sort of being young working in this area and trying to make ends meet in a cost of living I would imagine you’re sort of squeezed and you know we were just hearing from Sarah on our panel you
Know a lot of young people it’s like stop buying avocados stop having your coffees you’ve got a right to enjoy yourself as well as to to live and work but what are the concerns for you I think that for how hard we work we should be able to afford goats butter if
We’d like to buy it but it is tight say unless you want to go to the really cheap shops you have to spend a lot of money with the food shopping and say with this being taken from our wages on top it just means you can get even less
Yeah but as for being young Phoebe’s 10 years younger than me than perspective um it’s it’s not as hard because I live with my mom so so obviously I don’t have to pay for like rent and my mom pays the council tax which I’m thankful for um but I still
Pay my mom rent I pay her 303s a week and with because I have a car finance and obviously my insurance as a literally a seconde driver the insurance hasn’t dropped by a lot so it’s forking out about a grand and a half just to cover insurance for a year and it
Doesn’t drop the next year either so it’s quite hard in that perspective but I think I do have it easier than most adults cuz obviously I have time to save while I’m at my mom’s house whereas most people can’t yeah thank goodness for mom and daddy if you’re in that situation
Fib and keani thank you very much over 440 a week worse off after today’s budget uh check out the calculations on our website and app and we’re going to talk to Sarah penos now Consumer Finance expert about what happened in today’s budget and Sarah we’ve got some questions from viewers for you they’ve
Been submitting them online and the first one is about this um 2p reduction in National Insurance seen as a good news headline but from what we’ve discovered here just in this room and people are discovering at home it’s actually not making them any better off why is that yes as you’ve
Been been hearing I mean it’s there is some good news in the budget and certainly in terms of the kind of headline grabbing measures the 2 percentage. 2p reduction in the national insurance rate both for people who are employed and self-employed is the one that is going to generate the most
Headlines but there are other me measures that are leaving people worse off and I think one of the ones that has been discussed quite a lot in the Autumn statement and previous budgets is the freezing of the income tax thresholds now they’ve been frozen since uh 2021
They’re due now to be frozen until 28 29 and what that means is that um when wages are rising which they really have been over the last couple of years because inflation has been so much higher more people start paying basic rates tax who previously were not
Taxpayers and then more people who were basic rate taxpayers end up paying high rate tax now the institute for fiscal studies which does a lot of number crunching around this time has worked out that people who earn between 26,000 and £60,000 a year will be better off as
A result of both the announcement in the budget today on National Insurance and the one in the Autumn statement in November even if you offset that with the freezing of the income tax thresholds but if you fall outside those wage areas then you won’t be better off
And I think it’s also worth putting that cost of living context into it so we’ve been tracking the cost of living uh and how it’s been affecting people for two years now and towards the back end of last year people were telling us the average household was paying almost 500
A month more in household bills and food costs now that would have come down a bit because of the energy prices falling in in January and again falling in April and food costs some are beginning to come down but I I think that puts into context the government’s figure of £900
A year better off for somebody earning £35,000 if you look at the National Insurance cut announced today and the one announced in the in the Autumn statement and Sarah another question for you this came in from Howard he said what will the National Insurance tax cut
Mean for inflation is there a risk that it will go up yeah it’s a really good question now I have to say I’m not an economist but uh inflation the the factors that Drive inflation are quite complicated so um supply and demand you know if people do
As a result of the National Insurance cut all start rushing out to the shops and spending like mad then that means there’s more money chasing uh that limited Supply so it could in theory have an effect on inflation um slowing the amount that the rate Falls by or indeed uh meaning inflation increases
But inflation is more complicated so it’s things like fuel prices Energy prices as we saw when the uh you know Ukraine war started a couple of years ago uh actually the cost of delivering things those all go into the inflation rate so it could have an effect but I
Think it’s too early to say what the chancellor did announce in today’s budget was that as things stand um the inflation rate is forecast to fall to the 2% Target uh later on this spring which is which is ahead of What was forecast in the Autumn statement last
November so I think it’s definitely one to watch yeah sounds good doesn’t it the inflation headline coming down but we’ were speaking to so many people here in Grimsby and cleor who just aren’t feeling the benefit of that yet um this has come in from Deb she she says was
There anything for pensioners in the budget anything you spotted Sarah yeah so this is an interesting one because the National Insurance the cut in the national insurance rate will not benefit pensioners because it applies to people who are working under state pension age so even if you’re somebody who know you
Could get your state pension but you are either choosing to or you have to work you don’t benefit from that national insurance rate cut so now I’ve been having a look through all the budget documents and I couldn’t see anything else specific in it for pensioners apart
From the government has committed to the triple lock on pensions now this was very widely flagged anyway but and the government hasn’t said how long it’s committed the triple lock for but it does mean that the state pension will be going up by 8.5% from April so that
Means to somebody who’s entitled to the full um new state pension they’ll be getting around £221 a week that’s about £15,000 a year for somebody who’s on the old pension who um retired before 2016 they’re going to get just under £170 a week now I think again it’s worth saying
That our research shows that um one in five people who are currently able to get the state pension live on that as their sole source of income and that’s not easy at the best of times never mind during the cost of living crisis so I think for those people um you know every
Penny will help but still very tough times around the corner um Sarah this came in from Morgan what does a British isem mean this was uh announced by the chancellor today uh Morgan asked can I save more taxfree yeah so the chance there are two sort of savings Ann announcements one
Was it’s now been called the UK Isa um and that is going to be an extra £5,000 iser allowance that you can make use of if you invest in UK based assets now we don’t have the detail of this the government has said it’s going to
Consult on this so we don’t know exactly what this is going to look like but the idea is to encourage more people to invest in companies that are listed on the London Stock Exchange so in the UK and then secondly he also announced a British savings bond now this is a a
Savings product rather than an investment one um that will be offered by national savings and investments from April we don’t know the interest rate yet it’s going to be a three-year bond with a fixed rate I was having a look at Best Buy rates just a moment ago and you
Can get about 4 and a half% interest on a three-year fixed rate bond I think because of national savings it may not be quite that competitive but again probably will be attractive to a number of people that Sarah pennels really useful to hear for from you thank you very much
For answering uh some of our viewers questions on the budget that Sarah pennels there consum at Finance expert really good to talk to you thank you and so to come here on the UK tonight we’ll have more from the people of this region about what today’s announcements mean for them stay with Us a corner of Northeast Lincolnshire far away from the politics of Westminster once a booming fishing port now lays partly abandoned where labor stood proud for decades until the town turned blue an unexpected turn for Grimsby and CLE fors regeneration is already underway hope is on the horizon with a general election around
The corner Sky News gives voice to the people exploring the issues that we are all facing and hearing what they want from the next prime minister Each corner has got a story to tell you but which way will the people vote this time Around For Hello welcome back to the UK tonight live in korps for a special program on today’s budget now in his statement in the Commons at lunchtime the chancellor confirmed the 2p cut to National Insurance a giveaway for some 27 million workers but living standards remain squeezed and according to the budget
Watchdog the tax burden is approaching the highest level since the second world war well let’s get some reaction uh to what happened this afternoon in Westminster from here in Clon I’m joined by Shannon Donley influencer and owner of a small business uh selling personal safety kits and Mike Burton he’s the
Owner of special needs special educational needs schools both locally and nationally hello to you both hi good even um right I’ll start with the same question I asked my earlier panel from the local area anything in there for Grimsby and Clay thorps I don’t know I think um I do
Think nationally you know you look at the look at the National Insurance you can look at the fuel you can look at those elements but I think people locally here are more worried about what’s happening tomorrow and how they’re going to pay the bills tomorrow how they’re going to feed the family how
They’re going to drive I looked at the fuel aspect and the one thing I thought to myself is that’s okay but it’s already high enough and it needs to be reduced because a lot of people need it to even get to work and actually to support the families yeah and you know
It’s already a struggle and if you’re putting that you’re compound compounding it sorry on top of fuel food and energy a lot of people are worrying how they’re going to do that and the only people for me is I’m massive on community and massive on family and you can just see that
Pressure on the families cuz it’s coming from every angle yeah um there wasn’t anything in there for social care shanon I know that was your background you worked with with children in in children’s services before you became an entrepreneur in lockdown and set up your own business so I suppose you’d sort of
Had an eye on in that respect in sort of your old career and your new one anything for that because you know that’s two areas where a lot of help is needed it said from those who work in those areas it’s an area that massively struggles and from what I saw earlier no
Help whatsoever which is such a shame because it has a huge effect in in Grimsby and CLE fors if you know more funding was available um tell us a bit about your business because it’s a it’s a really interesting one and you have found so many benefits of set setting up your
Business here in this region talk to us about that so we obviously to sell the safety keychains um we are an online business um and so these are kits for women to keep themselves safe when they’re out and about or they’re traveling and yeah but it’s so much more
Than that because it benefits people’s mental health as well which people are hugely struggling at the moment with everything that’s going on um we did want to have a shop front um which luckily in this area the rent is quite cheap but I just didn’t see the benefit
At the current moment we’ve opening a shop around here which is such a shame which is why we’ve stayed online we do still have customers in the area that do come and pick up but there’s just there’s just not very much going on yeah Mike I know you’re really passionate
About mental health and yes there was nothing in the budget that addressed any extra funding area which is massive some of the things was hinted at was around you know large amounts of money going in to support people with mental health in work to stay in work but also you know
To get people back into work and I was really looking forward to seeing that happen cuz obviously owning you know special needs schools for children with social emotional mental health ADHD you know and learning difficulties I know how hard it is for people who are coming
From a disadvantage to be able to get into work and then even harder to stay into you know in work at the time but the one positive and I know sometimes there’s going to be a lot of negatives that come out of this I do think that
The actions they made around the child care element you know and you know people being able to access the benefits is going to be one positive that comes out of that because that some people especially before when it was just on one person’s wage they had to make a
Decision whether to go to work or stay at home because it was that close for some people and I think people and we talk about mental health people need purpose in life and I mentioned this to Tom yesterday that people need purpose and without work that affects the mental health you know
Being being a full-time parent all the time can be tough as well because you need your own time so I think that’s going to be really good to be able to support some people especially families who’ve got two incomes yeah and Shannon in the buildup to this budget it was
Build as tax cuts versus public spending and there was a tax cut for those that will benefit with the with the National Insurance announcement but when it came to public spending it’s the status quo it’s not going to increase it’s going to decrease what the chancellor said is you
Know we’re going to stay with the same level of spending you know which is 1% but essentially we’re going to spend it better how did you take that news because you know Public Services is really is a really hot topic in Grims being and CLE the erosion of them and
And the money the money that they feel they’re not getting yeah I think in this area I mean obviously myself probably everybody else dentist appointments doctor’s appointments anything like that it’s just chaos you’re waiting a very long time and although I understand where they’re coming from in terms of
Making the money last and it be more spread out if that makes sense I don’t know do we need more money does it is it how it’s used there was obviously talk about AI I don’t yeah essentially that’s what CHC was saying it’s like the money is there we just
Need to use it better whether it’s streamlining you know updating systems what was your view on that no I I think I was I’ve got a controversial view of that I think you know all the things that’s came out today and I think we forget the average Joe the average Joe
Won’t be able to interpret the information that’s come out do you know even us talking about it this evening and I think we’ve got to move with the modern times in that you know we’re looking at and I heard somebody on the previous uh panel that was on here
Talking around catering for the elderly generation and the modern generation and I think if we break down the way that information you know interpreted and then you know displayed to the public I think you’ll get more buying and I think people are looking at who to vote for a
Lot of people are going to be undecided and you could actually sway that by actually looking at the way that you communicate the information cuz I said this yesterday A lot of people will get asked questions like just asked me and they’ll be a bit undecided what they
Need is clear hope and a lot of people can get behind some hope and I think today a lot of people was left wondering because nothing was really big enough and and sometimes it’s and I know fortune favors the brave and I think it might have just been a bit too safe yeah
Well that has been said it was conservative it was sensible when what people really wanted was something going into this general election year to go oh right that could be the deciding factor for me and we didn’t get that so how are you feeling at the moment shanon because
You know we don’t know when the general election is it will be sometime this year so there might be a bit of time to make you mind up if it’s in the Autumn but but what’s going to to to swing it for you what’s going to be the deciding
Factors for you do you think it’s just so difficult and like we were saying earlier I just feel as though I can’t trust what anybody says over the last couple of years with what’s happened it’s it and I don’t want to vote conservative because of what’s happened
In the last couple of years but then I don’t feel like labor offer very much either and I feel like like everybody’s saying the same we don’t we we just don’t know what to do heard a lot the last we can’t trust what anybody says
They’ll say what you want to hear but do are they actually going to deliver on it yeah I think for me I’m a big believer that you sometimes you have to take away the big National picture and look at what’s happening right here and nobody’s
Asked me to say this is that I think action speaks louder than words I give inspirational talks locally every day you know online but then I also do things in the public I went to give a talk at a loneliness event at Christmas and there was a woman there and she
Won’t know I’m going to say this and and I didn’t know a prior was Melanie on and she was there at this event with 150 people who was there lonely at Christmas and she was dancing with at least 50 of them and she was there and I and she
Said to me when she was there said oh I think that’s really lovely what you’re doing there Melanie she went I said what you going to do if when you’re running again you know going for I just want to put the community at Heart of everything
So if she can put her actions you know where you know her words was then I will most vote that same with melie any event that I when she was here any event that I did she was always there when we did the campaign in cord for the environment
She was there well that’s I think I have heard that a lot the sort of nationalist issues boiled down to local issues and about the candidate that cares the most about this area which you know is going to happen up and down the UK approachable like she was walking a dog
A couple of months ago and I was having a conversation with her she’s just so approachable need MP to be accessible and Shannon and Mike thank you Mike we saw you swimming in Tom P’s report earlier on glad yeah glad you got your clothes on your Dy promise me you’ll get
Our national correspondent Tom pal in the water next time you check out no problem lovely thank you so much right we’re going to take a quick Break um when we come back we’re going to talk about more going to talk more about uh why we are here in Grimsby and CLE
Thorps they are our Target towns in the build up to a general election in this study we’re trying to model fetal development we’re trying to model how the baby’s developed in the late stage of pregnancy so uh this started by looking at diotic fluid which is a solution that uh surround and protect
The baby during development and we look at the cells at the various cell type that are present in this uh in this resource uh we identified progenitors identified uh cells that are stem cells and are specific to uh certain tissues of the fetus and we decided to try to
Grow them into what the the Press is calling mini organs we prefer to call them organoids the idea is to use these organoids to model fetal development so to model how the human tissues are developing uh to use them to model disease and so we try to do this with
Disease that affects the development of the lung and so what we’ve seen is that in the presence of these disease the organiz that we grow are different from the one of normal babies uh and based on this we expect in the future to be able to use this technology to test drugs
That are specific for these babies so in a personalized medicine manner uh and basically use these as a predictive model for how the pregnancies is going to arvel This research is done both at UCL uh and great ormon streate hospital and in the lab uh together with
Professor Paul deop Which is my Center uh we put these cells into three-dimensional culture so it’s an organoids are something that is getting quite established in medical technology is a discovery that is around since 2009 and these cells are basically grown in three dimension in a bubble of gel and
They expand and form these mini masses of tissue the way we see it going forward is uh to use this as Advanced Diagnostic method because in theory it should be able to predict how severe certain disease would be uh as uh drug test testing uh method and and then the
Sky is a limit with this platform we are able to access the pregnancy while the pregnancy is still going on okay and this is very relevant because we can uh theoretically intervene while the baby is still developing in a personalized manner we don’t really manipulate anything here we just take cells out
Expand them in culture and that’s it there’s no we don’t bring them back we don’t make them into something that could develop in a fetos and embryo or whatever we’re simply taking a snapshot of what’s the status of the tissue at that specific moment in development well as we’ve been saying
Throughout the day Sky News is going to be spending more and more time in Grimsby and here in CLE thoughts in the weeks and months ahead they are our Target towns and the new parliamentary constituency great Grimsby and clle thorps is just the kind of place the
Labor needs to win if it’s to secure a majority at the next general election so we want to know exactly what the people here think what’s important to them and what any wouldbe government needs to do to win their vote before coming here tonight I spent the day in Grimsby to
Get people’s views on today’s budget give me a snapshot of what it’s like to run Gary’s meat at the moment in the current climate in Grimsby well it takes a lot of hard work a lot of hours a lot of commitment and at the moment it’s paying
Off it’s like say there’s a lot of um overheads that have gone up and it it’s tough but it’s tough to um make it all work you know we have to put a lot of hours in you’re operating on F margins aren’t you yes yeah very squeezed Every Which Way so you were
Talking to me earlier about you know the cost of the produce we seeed behind us the the energy bills less money in people’s pocket yeah yeah um the energy bills it went from it went up £500 in a in a quarter and I had to find that I
Didn’t put prices up I found it you know so it takes a lot of work we have good weeks and we have not so good weeks whereas we always had good weeks prior to it all my fuel costs have gone more than doubled um and it’s a worrying the fact
That I was earning a reasonably good living because I’m putting the effort in the staff and the team are putting the effort in to make the business workable doable and uh it does but now I’m just earning a living The Divide between those that have a lot and those that
Really don’t have very much seems massive and like you said the budget doesn’t really Factor the The Divide is so big what do you want to see from a general election in terms of what party can come in what do they need to say to convince you that it’s not just sticking
Plasters they’re really going to get a hand handle on this problem let’s see some funding coming through to local people like ourselves so where we can do get on the ground and do the jobs that need to be done and provid to those people that really do need provision and
Let’s get some of those you know stop putting sticking plasters on and let’s get to the real issue and get the real heart and let’s start to tackle it if you looked at um Jeremy Hunt’s speech and you took out his election earing and finger pointing and blaming labor for
You know everything uh could have delivered that speech probably in half the time um in terms of content no rabbit out of the Hat no surprises um anything in there that’s going to affect your life um to me it’s not going to make a great deal of difference and I don’t
Think there’s a lot in there that’s going to get the people of great Grimsby jumping up and down either and there was also some talk about helping young people get on to the property ladder does any of that resonate with you I mean they talk about making affordable
Housing more affordable but how how can you make something that’s already extortionate more affordable you can’t drop it there is no way to be able to do that and without that big amount of money that you can get from your parents to be a to afford the house it’s not
Going to help at all to get you on the property ladder uh well gery is back with me and gery you know just some of the people we spoke to today in Grimsby and talking about what the budget meant or didn’t mean to them because it’s about what the people of
Grimsby and cops want and need and there wasn’t much in today’s budget for them was there no if we think about the thrust of this budget well the headline Grabber was that TWP Cup in National Insurance and let’s not take away from it it is the significant tax cut when we
Combine that with what we saw in November it’s a 4 P tax cut it’s worth about £900 to the average household but the problem is and we’ve heard this repeatedly on the pr program it’s being sandwiched by Massive tax rises in the form of those frozen thresholds it means
That some people are actually going to be worse off so if you earn less than £19,000 a year you’re actually going to be worse off when you look at the net position people on 50K are doing the best the average salary in Grimsby is £28,000 a year so there will be some
People who benefit but they are not the main beneficiaries of this policy and when we think about some of the issues here in Grimsby well it’s got higher than average levels of unemployment there are higher proportion of people here who aren’t even looking for work because they’re too sick for work to two
SE to work and it’s had the biggest declines in years in good health of anywhere in the country the gap between here and somewhere like barkshire is 15 years so as you can imagine there’s very little appetite for cuts to public spending and whatever we hear from the
Chancellor today or in the coming days there’s no getting away from the fact that public services are being cut so while total spending is increasing there are some budgets things like prisons courts local authorities which are facing really massive Cuts over the coming years and it’s communities like
Those here who rely more heavily on those types of Public Services that will face the brunt of that and also they’re crying out for investment in public infrastructure here things like new transport links it’s why the promises of leveling up back in 2019 really cut through because people want to spend
More money uh on public infrastructure here but from the budget today we actually saw more cuts to public investment so I think all of that might help explain why you’re getting quite a muted reaction here okay gy thank you g now and our political correspondent he’s
Been with me uh in Grimsby and cleor today talking to people about what the budget means for them and looking ahead to that general election no date of course yet uh but we’ll be here in Grimsby and cleor throughout the year talking to people about the political
Twist and turns as we approach a general election we’ll see you tomorrow night at 8 For