According to the public, Labour’s first Budget was primarily about tax rises

This week, Labour announced their first government Budget for over 14 years. The new government surprised many with the breadth and scale of their changes to taxation and spending, with headline announcements including a rise in employer’s national insurance contributions and £100bn in new capital spending.

The government will be hoping that the main message to land with the public will be one around the new cash being spent to improve public services, rather than tax rises which some argue could impact pay packets and wage growth.

After the Budget was announced, YouGov asked people to tell us, in their own words, what, if anything, their main takeaway was from the fiscal event. We then used our AI Topic Quantifier to process those results into the key themes, and the results do not make good reading for the new government.

The results show that increased funding for the NHS is the main Budget story for just 3% of Britons, while new school funding did not even register.

By contrast, around 39% of the public are, currently, telling us the main thing they noticed from the Budget is something to do with a tax rise. This includes 19% who explicitly mention the rises in employers’ National Insurance contributions, 13% who mention tax rises generally, and 3% who mention changes to inheritance tax.

In addition, 2% mentioned the increase in the bus fare cap from £2 to £3 as their main takeaway, with a further 2% mentioning the cut in winter fuel allowance.

A more positive news story, as far as the government are concerned, is the third place ranking for the increase in the national minimum wage, although this still only amounts to 8% of people overall. The card makes for bleak reading for anyone hoping that the public would see this as a Budget of spending and investment in public services and fixing economic foundations, rather than taxes and cuts.

See the full results here

YouGov are continuing to offer innovations and new products in the AI space - reach out to us if you think our AI topic quantifier model could be of use to you in your future projects.

Photo: Getty