Sky News conducted a poll which revealed the majority of voters support Rishi Sunak’s budget and are in support of how he is handling the economy. After the budget plans were announced by Sunak, 1,529 people were surveyed a few days after to gather information on public opinion.
The poll by Opinium showed that in the majority of cases, people believed that the new policies announced were better than worse, with the exception of increasing foreign aid back to 0.7%.
The most popular idea was the plan to increase minimum wage, which was in the lead by a large margin, changes to the Universal Credit taper rate were also heavily supported. Sunak has insisted that he thinks the fairest way out of the pandemic is to “lower taxes for people”. Sunak believes those with, “the broadest shoulders” will pay most of the taxes and those who are paid the least will be helped by the changes to Universal Credit.
These were the percentages of support per budget ideas:
- 79% Increasing minimum wage
- 63% Decreasing Universal Credit “taper”
- 59% Funding for new parents
- 58% Reforming alcohol duty
- 55% Freezing fuel duty
- 53% Cutting business rates for hospitality and retail
- 52% Increasing passenger duty on long-haul flights
- 43% Cutting fuel duty on domestic flights
- 34% Bring back 0.7% foreign aid commitment
In the poll Sir Keir Starmer who is a Labour leader alongside shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves hold the top spot for managing the economy, however, Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson led with 40% to 20%. Reeves has described Sunak’s budget as, “hammering working people, while giving banks a tax cut”.
The budget taken as a whole was supported by 39% of people and 21% were disapproving. These numbers are not too bad, but do not show the same level of support as previous budget plan announcements, as last March when 52% were in full support and only 12% disapproved.
Opinion was also quite split on how fair the budget plans are with 38% thinking that it is fair, and 30% who think it is unfair.
Despite these promising results, only 18% of those who took the survey believe this budget will have a positive impact on their finances, and 28% think it will have a negative impact.
46% remain indifferent, thinking that it will not have any impact on them at all.
