John Healey faces his biggest moment in nearly 30 years in Parliament as the Chancellor draws up his first Budget since being appointed by Andy Burnham
Wednesday’s Budget will be the new government’s biggest test yet(Image: James McCauley/Shutterstock)
In the last three decades John Healey has served under four Prime Ministers and helped lead Britain’s resistance to bloodthirsty tyrant Vladimir Putin.
But when he holds his ceremonial red box aloft outside No11 Downing Street on Wednesday, the Chancellor faces the biggest test of his career. If his Budget goes well, some in Westminster believe it could pave the way for a general election as soon as next year.
In July the former Defence Secretary – who quit Keir Starmer’s government in protest over defence spending – was the surprise pick as Mr Burnham’s Treasury chief. The new Prime Minister strolled into Downing Street promising to lead a ‘cost-of-living government’.
We’ve since seen a raft of measures, including a £2 bus fare cap and scrapping VAT on energy bills – with the promise of more to come.
But how far is Mr Healey prepared to go this week, and how much scope is there to go bold? The economy is undoubtedly in troubled waters, with Donald Trump’s shambolic war in Iran definitely not helping.
The US President’s escapades have ramped up the cost of government borrowing, for example – giving Mr Healey less wriggle room than he would like.
In an attempt to prevent leaks, the Treasury is said to have introduced new “military-style” security measures – a nod to the Chancellor’s time at the MOD, when carelessness could cost lives.
But as the process reaches its final stages, the chatter will only intensify. One union source told The Mirror: “This is one of the first big tests for Burnham’s government. There’s no doubt that they have hit the ground running – capping bus fares and taking VAT off energy bills.
“But households are staring down the barrel of a very difficult winter. They need a budget which does everything it can to protect living standards.
“That will mean taking on vested interests like big banks and the super rich who can afford to pay a bit more in tax. They’ll get stick from the usual suspects but they need to hold their nerve and deliver for working people.”
A former shadow minister told The Mirror that the Budget could well be a springboard for an early general election. The left-winger said: “I think this budget will, if it lands well with the public, with business, with trade unions, with backbenchers – if it lands well out there, I think it will be another tick in the box for an early general election next year, probably.
“There are lots of reasons to think that, I won’t go into them all, but they do exist, and I think that’s a real possibility. There’s so many reasons to not want to go up, you know, to the full two, two and a half years ahead.”
Another MP said: “Andy’s done a great job of setting out a vision. His speech at the Labour Party conference was one of the best I’ve seen in over 30 years, and he’s not just playing it safe. Voters like that. We (Labour backbenchers) like that. Higher taxes for banks to pay for cost-of-living measures is an easy win. Hopefully there’ll be more policies like that.”
Backbenchers have said the mood is a lot different to the build-up to previous Budgets under Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves. Mr Healey will be anxious to trigger the kind of infighting that torpedoed Mr Starmer’s planned welfare cuts.
One MP said: “Look, it’s very clear that the frontbench now are far more engaged with backbenchers… The whips are far more touchy-feely. I wouldn’t say it’s quite an HR department, but they definitely are more in touch with how we’re feeling. They’re right to be.
“They’ve looked at what happened to the Starmer regime in two years, they’ve been brought down and he doesn’t want that. So, they’re feeling their way a lot more than the Starmer regime did, which was far more imposing and draconian.”
Labour will seek to frame the choices made by the Chancellor as a key dividing line with the Tories, and are expected to accuse Kemi Badenoch of focusing on tax cuts for the wealthy, rather than those struggling to pay their bills.
The choreography behind-the-scenes is now much calmer given the rigid Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) process. It’s a far cry from the Gordon Brown and Tony Blair era, when policy decisions could be made the evening before.
Mr Healey was a Treasury minister under Blair, so will have seen first-hand the wheeling-and-dealing that goes into arguably the biggest day in the Parliamentary calendar. One former Treasury insider said even if the Budget policies are already settled, there will be lots of polishing in the coming days.
The Chancellor is also likely to conduct marathon speech writing sessions with key officials and political advisers before Wednesday’s big moment in the Commons.
Mr Burnham has reached the three month mark at Downing Street. While it’s still early days, new YouGov polling reveals what voters think.
Nearly a quarter – 23% – say Mr Burnham has so far met their positive expectations, though 12% say they had expected him to do well and have been disappointed.
There are, though, 14% saying the PM has been better than they expected, though a further 23% said they expected he would do poorly – and believe he has.
It will be the polling after the Budget, though, that will most interest Mr Burnham and his advisors as they weigh up whether to make the biggest of gambles in the coming months.
