Harlow Conservative slams Chancellor’s spring statement
News / Wed 4th Mar 2026 at 08:58am
HARLOW Conservative councillor Joel Charles has responded to the Chancellor’s Spring Statement:
Cllr Charles said: “”There is no urgency in Government to develop a credible plan for stimulating economic growth. The Chancellor failed to recognise the true scale of the challenge in her statement. It is worrying that the growth forecast for this year has been downgraded.
“The clearest warning sign that current economic policy is contributing to a lack of confidence in the economy can be seen in the labour market. Unemployment, forecast to peak this year, is a real-life consequence impacting residents in Harlow and many other communities. Youth unemployment is now higher in Britain than it is in Europe.
“Ministers have been too inconsistent in their approach to economic stewardship, particularly when events in other parts of the world require action domestically. Oil and gas prices have soared since the strikes on Iran commenced. The conflict could have a material impact on inflation and interest rates in the future. It is unclear how the Government is going to respond.
“It seems the Chancellor is not willing to change course. There is no urgency about providing the right conditions for renewed growth. Only the Conservative Party has a clear plan to restore the full potential of the economy and to improve living standards.”
Click below for more details.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c99k7djlklyo
Mr George
2026-03-04 09:46:26
"Only the Conservative Party has a clear plan to restore the full potential of the economy and to improve living standards" Ha, living standards that declined massively under 14 years of Tory rule.
Adam
2026-03-04 09:49:37
Mr George you are correct, and they have continued under labour to decline. The only solution is one which most people, boomers especially will not take. We need to gut the state and end benefits including the old age pension.
Eddie
2026-03-04 13:59:01
Adam. Your be a pensioner one day, and I imagine your parents are or were pensioners, depending on their pension after paying NI all their lives, as pensioners of today have done. You should be complaining about the goverment wasting their money on other things, that I cannot say or YH will take my post off.
Mr George
2026-03-04 16:17:43
Ah, the current trend of blaming the boomers for everything is alive I see. This mess isn't down to boomers, who have paid into the pot. This is mismanagement of funds, fraud amongst their friends, and a failure to invest in the country and. All the tories did was kick the can down the road, while ruining our country and NHS. The other thing, not everyone in the UK is on a huge wage in order to save enough for a pension. All the people who have normal, minimum wage jobs who keep this country running smoothly will not be able to pay rent, bills, bring up families and still save hundreds of thousands. Pensions are needed for many.
Colleen Morrison
2026-03-04 16:42:34
Adam, Your attack on UK's pensioners totally ignores the appalling impact that withdrawal of the state pension would have on most pensioners. I would first remind you that the state pension is not a welfare benefit, it is a contributory pension. During the next 20-25 years, UK will hugely benefit from a vast, £5.5 TRILLION intergenerational asset transfer, the largest such transfer in UK's history, as a substantial number of great generation and baby boomer pensioners die and bequeath £5.5 TRILLION, an average of £200 billion a year, to younger generations and to HMRC/Government (Source: Financial Times, UBS). This sum will be largely comprised of the value of ordinary pensioners homes, since 7% of our pensioners are now home owners. You clearly believe that most pensioners are rich, but that's untrue. Over 7 million pensioners, males born before1951 and females born before1953, if they've paid enough NI, receive state pension of £9123.40 pa, £760.25 per month. UK's state pension is now worth an abysmal 31% of UK's average earnings. The average private pension pots of UK's 60 year olds is now: men £79,300, which provides private pension of £2376 to 2796 pa, women £40,000, which provides private pension of £1197 pa to £1596 pa. Retirement pauperises many pensioners. 1 Million UK pensioners must therefore work and pay tax into their late 70s to survive, while the young say, make them pay Nat.Ins too. Do you seriously believe that most pensioners would survive without their state pension, i.e. that they could survive on £1197 to £2796 a year? The truth is that most pensioners would die of starvation and, or, hypothermia in winter without the state pension. The same is true for many other age groups who could not survive without welfare benefits.
Colleen Morrison
2026-03-04 16:45:38
Apologies for above typo stating 7% of pensioners are homes owners, this should have stated 75% of pensioners are home owners.
Colleen Morrison
2026-03-04 16:54:08
Also Adam, UK spends just 4.9% of its GDP on pensions, yet the majority of OECD countries spend an average of 8% and some spend16% to 30% of GDP on state pensions. UK has one of the worst state pensions in the developed world (Source: OECD) 7 million UK grandparents - 59% of pensioners - provide free childcare of their grandchildren, each saving their children an average of £13,500 pa: a total of £94.5 billion of free childcare annually. (Source: Savilles' survey) Pensioners are also the bank of mum and dad providing interest free & repayment free loans and cheap and free accommodation to adult children. And pensioners have been lost multi-billions of savings interest since 1997, due to low interest rates, designed to subsidise the young's cheap mortgages and loans.
Colleen Morrison
2026-03-04 17:55:17
Those who claim that pensioners should have saved for their retirement when young, forget that today's pensioners when young were allowed one week's unemployment benefit to find another job, and they did not receive tax credits, or housing benefits, or free child care, or child benefit for the first child, or Universal Credits, or PIPs, or Stamp Duty exemptions. And post war younger generations paid substantially higher income tax than the 20% basic rate of income tax we pay today, to pay off UK's huge war debts. UK's historic Basic Rate of Income Tax: 1945 to 1951- 47%, 1952 to 57 - 45%, 1958 - 42%, 1960 to 64 - 38%, 1964 to 71 - 42%, 1972 to 74 - 38%, 1974 to 76 - 35%, 1978 to 85: 30%, 1987 to 93 - 33% to 25%, 1993 to 96 - 25% to 23%, 1998 to 2006 22% to 23%, 2006 to 2025 - 20%.
Me, Harlow
2026-03-04 17:55:50
Colleen, well said, all of it. I believe too the reason we had the winter fuel allowance is because of our pensions were so low. I remember Gordon Brown bringing them in because the European Union were not impressed with our low state pensions. I think it was a cheaper option for Brown at the time. I do also remember the newspaper stories of far too many pensioners having to chose between heating or eating.
Colleen Morrison
2026-03-05 12:34:35
Me, Harlow, Thank you. I also remember Gordon Brown giving state pensioners annual pension increases of a miserable and miserly 75 pence a week, when he had a huge, gold plated, elitist, half final salary pension to look forward to. And, Brown had the nerve to give himself a substantial salary increase during his final months as Prime Minister, in order to squeeze as much salary as possible out of the taxpayer and to increase the size of his pension. What a greedy and grasping man he was.
Me, Harlow
2026-03-05 22:42:13
Colleen, To be fair, I just think that's all politicians! They pretty much all have their fingers in the pie, I often think it's why they do the job... Just given themselves another 5% pay rise recently too, how nice when unemployment is on the rise for the rest of us - totally tone deaf. I can remember too with covid that they were given an extra £10k on top of the (yearly) £25k to run an office while many in this country were losing their jobs or just missed out on government help during lockdown. Examples like this are plentiful sadly.
Marie
2026-03-10 01:29:54
The state pension is not a benefit!! Pensioners have paid into their state pensions all their working lives and have rightly earned it.
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