A Budget for lower earners and Harlow families, for jobs and for motorists

With the current state of the economy, it was always going to be a difficult Budget.

We are currently paying £120 million a day in debt interest alone - that is £180,000 for Harlow residents, every single day.

But, despite the economic problems, the Budget has some good news for local residents in three ways:

1. A Budget for lower taxes for lower earners, and help for families. Harlow families will keep about £8 million extra in their pockets, after the Government raised the income tax threshold.

This will save most Harlow workers £200 a year. And there are further tax cuts on the way next year, saving Harlow people a total of £300 a year from 2012.

Getting on the housing ladder is becoming increasingly difficult, especially for young families in Harlow. That is why the Government has announced £250 million to help first-time buyers to purchase a new shared equity house or flat. This will help 10,000 families, and also boost our construction industry, and apprenticeships, supporting thousands of new jobs.

2. A Budget for motorists. The last Labour Government planned huge fuel tax rises on petrol. For months I have campaigned for fairer fuel prices - and met the PM directly on this - to help ease the burden for the 35,000 motorists in our town.

The Government has listened, scrapping Labour’s planned rise in fuel duty - and actually cutting the tax instead by 1p. We are also cancelling Labour's "fuel escalator" completely.

This will save Harlow motorists at least £750,000 this year at the pump, and brings to an end the frequent rises we saw under the last Labour Government.

3. A Budget for jobs. Thankfully, in recent months unemployment in Harlow has fallen. But since Gordon Brown's recession our town has suffered from deep unemployment and rising costs. This has put a burden on hard working people who just want to have a decent living.

To combat this, we are investing £300 million to create 100,000 work experience places for young people, in real private sector jobs.

On top of this we will create an an extra 250,000 apprenticeships over four years, and new “Enterprise Zones” with tax breaks and easier planning rules. I myself have taken on a Harlow apprentice in Parliament, and am encouraging other MPs to do the same.
With more than 2,500 businesses registered in our town, Harlow is one of the most entrepreneurial towns in England, and I have asked the Government to consider us to be one of the new “Enterprise Zones”. Our firms will benefit from an extra 2p reduction in business taxes, creating thousands of new jobs.

As well as being a Budget for families, lower earners, jobs and motorists, I am glad that the Government has protected NHS spending, and will spend money on poorer pupils through the pupil premium.

The pupil premium guarantees at least £430 extra will be spent on each Harlow pupil on free school meals - about 2,000 young people in our town, whose education will benefit from an extra £831,000 in every single year.

Finally, the freeze in Council Tax will save £72 a year for an average Harlow family. It has been an extremely tough year, but our economy is at last moving in the right direction.

by Robert Halfon - www.roberthalfon.blogspot.com

Dreading petrol price rises

Every time I fill my car up with petrol, I have a renewed sense of dread - as prices seem to be going ever upwards - substantially by the day. My car is diesel (a Kia), and only last week, when I was in Darlington, it was £1.01 a litre. Today, passing a BP garage in Central London, diesel was £1.09/litre. Admittedly, BP is usually the most expensive petrol company, but nevertheless, the huge price, represented a sign of things to come.

If the price increases were not bad enough, Gordon Brown seems determined to go ahead with petrol tax increase of 2.3 pence from 1 September. The Labour Government continues to penalise the motorist time and time again. This latest increase, could not come at a worse period, particularly as so many people are struggling to pay the bills - because of the state of the economy. What is astonishing is that fuel prices indicate that we in England, pay 20% more on petrol than most of our European neighbours because we have higher taxes to pay.

The question is, are we going to see fuel prices, reach the horiffic prices of last year? And if so, what on earth will be the effect on our faltering economy? It doesn't bear thinking about.

P.S. I tend to find that the cheapest garage for me in Harlow seems to be the Shell Station on the A414, just off the M11 - the only catch is that sometimes the pumps are 'empty', and only the more expensive 'premium' fuel is available.

By Rob Halfon ~ Working hard for Harlow, Hastingwood, Nazeing, Roydon & Sheering. http//roberthalfon.blogspot.com

Fed up with Harlow Traffic and a New Shell Garage on the A414

One of the best things about travelling back to Harlow late at night is that the roads are quiet and there is no traffic hold-up on Junction 7 the A414 or Southern Way. Everyone knows that traffic in Harlow at peak times is pretty unbearable.

That's why for the last two years I have been campaigning hard for an extra bypass on the M11 just past Junction 7, so that drivers would have another entry point into Harlow. I set up a website about it called http://www.fedupwithharlowtraffic.com/ and have been overwhelmed by the support from local residents. Even the Labour MP for Harlow has agreed to join the campaign and has held talks with other Ministers about it. Hopefully many of you reading this will receive a special card about the extra bypass, through your letter box over the next couple of weeks. Do fill it in and send it back.

That is why I am delighted that tomorrow, Conservative Shadow Transport Secretary Teresa Villiers MP will be coming to Harlow. I hope to hear from the Shadow Minister whether or not a future Conservative Government would be able to support the bypass proposal - particularly after ten years of a Labour Government that has seen no real action at all on this major issue.

This is all the more astonishing as the Government are forcing the concreting of our countryside with thousands of extra buildings- so a new bypass will be needed more than ever.

On another front, I understand that Miss Villiers will be making a special announcement on tax and pensions on behalf of David Cameron, so it should be an interesting day.

Incidentally, it was nice to see, stop and fill up petrol at the shiny new Shell Garage on the A414. The rebuild makes the Garage look really smart. It now sells loads of food and has a decent coffee machine! Most importantly - unlike BP on the opposite side of the road - petrol is sold at reasonable prices, with diesel costing 96.9p a litre (it is over £1 at BP).

Anyway, off to bed now. I will fill you in on what happens with the Shadow Cabinet Minister's visit tomorrow afternoon.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device