Jeremy Hunt’s budget appears to have backfired - with almost twice as many voters believing it will increase taxes overall, as those who think it will mean tax cuts. The latest Opinium poll for the Observer, conducted after the budget, also shows that the Tories have fallen two points in the past two weeks, suffering the reverse of a “budget bounce”. Hunt and prime minister Rishi Sunak had wanted what is likely to be the last budget before a general election to be seen as evidence that the economy was on the mend. Sunak, in particular, wanted to deliver an eye-catching tax cut to demonstrate the government was putting money back in people’s pockets. The centrepiece of the budget was a two percentage point cut in employees’ national insurance (NI) contributions, worth £450 a year to an employee on an average salary of £35,000. However, economists and thinktanks pointed out that other less trumpeted measures in the budget, including the continued freezing of thresholds at which people start paying higher rates of tax, had the effect of increasing taxes overall.
Compared with two weeks ago, the Tories have dropped two points to just 25%, while Labour has fallen one point to 41%. This puts Labour’s lead up one point at 16 points. Asked whether they thought that as a result of the budget levels of tax had gone up or down, some 31% of respondents said they believed they had gone up despite the national insurance cut, with just 17% believing they had gone down. A total of 29% thought they had not changed. Hunt’s net approval rating has also fallen marginally compared with the previous poll by Opinium two weeks ago. Just 22% of people approve of the way he is doing his job, compared with 21% a fortnight ago. But 45% now disapprove of Hunt’s performance, an increase of three points, giving him a net rating of –22%.
James Crouch, head of public affairs and policy at Opinium, said: “Few were expecting one budget to turn around a double-digit polling deficit but Jeremy Hunt will be disappointed that the headline tax-cut he spent so long trying to find headroom for has failed to register. “Ultimately, if the Conservatives want this budget to have a positive impact on their electoral chances then they have to hope that voters feel the effect of the NI cut and any economic recovery more than they feel the other pressures on cost of living that have dominated for the past two years.” • This article was amended on 11 March 2024 to correct the graph on voting intentions. The Green party is on 7%, not 3% as an earlier version showed; and the first Labour party bar was resized to show the correct percentage.