Does the Budget signal the hardest economic reforms in generations?
Is this the harshest Budget in living memory?
- Yes
- 39
- No
- 16
Charities warn George Osborne’s Budget will hammer already hard-pressed families like never before.
A four-year freeze on all working-age benefits on top of a £6,000 cut to the overall benefit cap, and a ban on young people claiming housing benefit means this Budget is one of the harshest ever known for both unemployed and working families on low incomes.
Campaigners say the cuts will affect up to 300,000 ordinary Scots families.
He also announced moves to introduce a national living wage – a move some anti-poverty campaigners believe is a crass attempt to undermine their years of campaigning to get employers to sign up to the more substantial Living Wage.
All told, is this the harshest Budget Scots have witnessed in living memory?