Budget 2019 abandoned

Despite the announcement by Sajid Javid that 6th November 2019 would be Budget Day, this has now been cancelled. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is as a result of the ongoing debate and uncertainty caused by Brexit negotiations and wrangling.

Last Friday, Javid confirmed ‘The Budget is not going ahead because we are planning now to dissolve parliament on the 6th, so clearly you can’t have a Budget on the same day’.

The dissolution of Parliament may still not happen however, as, at the time of writing, Labour have refused to support the Government’s quest for a General Election. It was reported that they would only block the call for an election until the chance of a ‘no-deal’ Brexit was removed, and this morning’s ‘flextension’ announcement by the EU appears to have done that. We now have until 31st January 2020 to leave the EU, though we can go earlier if we have a deal agreed in Parliament.

Today’s Parliamentary vote on whether to approve a General Election will require 434 votes for the motion to be carried. Under the terms of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, it is only through a vote with two-thirds of MPs agreeing or a vote of no-confidence in the PM that can bring an early election.

In the original announcement of the Budget date, Javid said ‘we must get on with governing’. Let’s hope that this can happen very soon, but in the meantime, we will all need to continue to be patient and keep pushing on.